Waiting For Dawn
by Magick
Summary: And there was nothing but blood, and breath, and time…" When two people have nothing left to desire, when they have lost the light at the end of the tunnel sometimes it takes another person to relight that candle. TomHermione, TRHG. COMPLETE.
1. In The Garden

Disclaimer: I do not own the character or the setting of this story. Anything you recognize belongs to JK Rowling, and this is written for enjoyment and not for profit.

_Hey everyone, this is a quick note to dedicate this story to all of the amazingly talented writers and artists that support this fandom- and the fans that keep us inspired to create more._

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It was one of those days that was supposed to be beautiful. The sun was shining with luminous green through the sparse leaves of the beech tree that stood in the corner of the high walled yard. The scrubby, tough grass poked up towards the bright light, as though the feet of 2 dozen children weren't about to tread it back into the soil from whence it came. A faint breeze kept off the worst of the heat, pushing the occasional cotton puff cloud through the cerulean blue sky.

But in the far corner of the little yard sat a young man that saw none of it. The sun lay in dappled beams across him, his impossibly dark hair reflecting the gold light with tones of blue. His eyes were closed, and a casual passerby might assume he was sleeping. Leaning against the trunk of the beaten old birch, facing down the yard instead of towards the brownstone building that the yard belonged to.

Tall and lanky, his clothing had apparently long since given up on the task of covering his wrists and ankles. Chalky pale skin peeked out from beneath frayed cuffs, and an amateurish patch sewn onto one knee attested to more then a few years of hard wearing.

The scene looked like something out of a painting, or an illustration from a Grimm's fairy tale. The handsome prince with his features carved of perfect marble, sitting fix'd beneath that tree until some brave heroine came and lifted the curse he had been placed under. Resting there, unaware of the passing of time, the seasons changing on endlessly in their cycle; leaving him lost to his sad dreams. And in fact, it would have been a wonderful likeness, if it wasn't for the little pea green garden snake that was curled up in a patch of sunlight on his right shoe.

Somedays they would talk. Quietly, in the hissing syblants of the language of snakes, out of sight of the other children living in the big brownstone building. They would speak of little things, of dreams that he wouldn't dare share with anyone else. Hopes and fears that slowly faded with every year, and the things they had seen. But for the moment they were quiet, content to simply enjoy the rare moment of peace and quiet. Their own thoughts occupying space in the early morning light.

But of course it couldn't last, the still broken by a bony woman in a grey serge dress. Her voice rattled unpleasantly on the ear, like jagged rocks scraping down a shallow slope. "You'll miss your bus if you don't hurry." She barked quietly at the resting young man, not wanting to wake the other children until after he was gone. If anyone had asked, she would have denied the little spark of joy that burned in her soul when she thought that he was leaving. That in a few moments he would leave, and she would never have to see him again.

The prince opened his eyes slowly, so dark in the shade they reminded one of twin wells. Empty, and devoid of any emotion. A chillingly cold, black grey canvas that didn't shine with any hint of anything.

Sliding the snake into his pocket with a free hand, he gracefully rose to his feet. A practiced step avoiding the small elbows of roots that stuck out above the soil. Dusting off the loose dirt the still clung tenaciously to his patched clothing, Tom Riddle made his way towards the house without a backwards look.

That casual observer would never know that he was leaving the place that had been both Hell and Home for 17 years, for the last time.

The orphanage was like his own little slice of personal Hell.


	2. Absence of Hope

_Jukebox plays- Somewhere, by Within Temptation_

**Chapter 2**

There was nothing left.

The scent of ashes hung in the air, underscored by blood and the ozone tang of magic. The grounds of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry had been churned to a bloody pulp by the hundreds of feet that had flocked here seeking revenge or sanctuary. After the months of planning, of preparation, it had all come down to this. Bodies strewn across the ground like scattered puzzle pieces, to many to count in a day, in a week.

The Great Hall stood empty of breath, save for one living figure. In the midst of the shattered tables stood Hermione Granger, surrounded by the still and ghastly faces of people she knew, all to well. The silence was deafening, pressing against her eardrums and echoing the sound of her frantic heartbeat.

Her hands were stained with ink and blood, chilled by the flesh of the corpses that pressed in around her. Stilled pulses that she had felt for, knowing that there was nothing more she could do. Her wand dangled limply in her hand, her body beginning to tremble uncontrollably.

It was gone, it was all gone and there was nothing left. Mutual destruction and neither side had emerged with the slightest shade of victory. Her usually logical mind stalled and motionless in the wake of this- the end of all she knew. Barely feeling the beat and pause of vitae gushing from a laceration in her stomach. She had heard the Sectumsempra cast, but never seen the face of the man who cast it. Her free hand pressed against the soaked fabric of her sweater, blinking back tears that seared her eyes.

And there was nothing but blood, and breath, and time… So little time before she joined the rest of the corpses.

_Time_

The thought stuck in her head like a mantra, an idea so far fetched and impossible that her oxygen depleted mind couldn't wrap itself around the concept. Her breath gasped raggedly from her throat, sore and burning, inhaling smoke and the scent of a charnel house with every breath.

Hermione's fight or flight instinct had long since exhausted itself, and in the silence of the un-dug graves something else took its place. Shining and hard as a new penny, pushing aside the agony of what was surely a fatal wound. Placing her despair on a back burner, this one last chance to act before her body realized that it was going to die anyway.

Pocketing her wand with jerky motions, her hand skittering over her chest in haphazard pulses that matched the crimson beats that leaked from her veins. Closing around the Time Turner that hung like a life raft around her neck, her skin clammy and cold on the smooth dials and rings.

Sinking to her knees, her body no longer containing the strength the hold itself upright. Clutching at the little metal pendant, forcing her foggy mind to process the number of turns it would take. How far to go, and what she would meet when she got there- but it was all too much.

"Come on, you know this... Come on, you know this..." She murmured into the silence, sinking further to the ground. Her hands trembled now, so turning the little bands surrounding the Time Turner would have been well neigh impossible. Hermione's hands and feet tingling with pins and needles, blood loss making her shudder and the room spin wildly on its axis.

A helpless sob tore out of her throat, fear gripping her in a panic. Echoing through the halls, reverberating through the ears of witches and wizards who could no longer hear her agony. Her tongue felt heavy and clumsy in her mouth, muffling into illegible consonants the words of her private prayer to herself. Struggling against the black spots that swam in front of her vision, until there were too many.

Limp, Hermione's hand hit the floor with a crash, tearing the delicate chain of the Time Turner away from her throat. Cracking the tiny vial of sand, she was unaware of the pale purple smoke that rose from the destroyed device. Numb to the pain as she was torn away.

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	3. Journey

_Jukebox plays: Remembering Jenny, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer_

**Chapter 3**

The trees and moors flashed by outside the Hogwarts Express windows, first year students pressed up against the windows as though to memorize every mile of the journey. The corridors filled with the laughter and groans that accompany the first day of school, children chattering in animated language to friends that they hadn't seen for the whole of summer.

The day had lived up to its promise, the trees dotted with the occasional red or yellow leaf, heralding in the first of autumn with a splash of color. Soon enough all the trees would wear their fall colors, covered with gowns of russet and gold, the temperature dropping from the humid heat of summer. The shallow stirring of contemplation, as Tom stared out the window lethargically.

There were two other people in his compartment, talking quietly about some play they had seen over the holidays. Their backs were turned towards him, as though protecting their conversation from his apathetic glances. Or perhaps it was an effort to keep from annoying him too much- Either way, it mattered less then nothing to him. Less then the Head Boy position he had been bestowed, less then the sluggish shift of the little garden snake in his robe pocket.

Tucked close into his body heat, Libya flickered her tongue out briefly. Tasting soap and ink in the air, and wishing this part of the journey was over. The pocket, though not uncomfortable, was a far cry from the patch of sunlight she had been lounging in before. At a little more then eight inches long, she could coil up rather small, though this long trip was starting to try her patience. The vibrations from the wheels shuddered through her sinuous body, shifting the walls of her soft, dark, temporary habitat.

But still, this journey gave her ample time to ponder over her change in fate. At which point in her life she had shifted from a mere spectator, to the precious and protected familiar of the wizard that she sat with. This, the second year that she had made this trek with him; though, he had promised this year would be more comfortable then the last. That she would have space to move, instead of spending the majority of her time hidden away from the other cruel students of Slytherin house.

Libya did not reckon emotion in the same way humans did, her mind was not wired to love. But it was her gift to be able to learn, and in her own way, she began to grasp the concept of affection. This wizard had named her, albeit it was a Latin word for 'snake', but it was a name nonetheless. He protected her from the children that would pull on her tail, or tie her in knots.

And in that way, she viewed him as much hers and she was his. Her musings her interrupted by her whole little world shifting, the scent of soap and sweat growing stronger as she flickered her tongue out for a second time. The smell was underscored by grass, and ink, and something that was just uniquely _him_. She didn't try to analyze it passed that, coiling herself loosely around his fingers.

Rubbing her scales slowly, Tom felt the agitated serpent fall still. He couldn't count the number of times over the years that his little familiar had told him that he exploited her weakness evilly- and it had certainly never stopped him. Had they the train car to themselves, he would have commented on the oddly cat-like tendency she had to go limp under his touch. Once, he had phrased it as 'boneless', but Libya had been only too quick to jibe back that snakes weren't very big on bones to begin with.

Calmed by the repetitive action of his fingers moving slowly over her smooth body, Tom stared once more out the window. Enjoying for its simplicity, the last moments of pseudo-peace he would probably have for the rest of the evening.


	4. The First Day

_Jukebox Plays: My Skin, by Natalie Merchant_

**Chapter 4**

If he had known that being Head Boy was going to involve running errands around the castle for most of the evening, Tom Riddle decided that he might have been forced to turn down the job. Currently, it was ferrying a remarkably flimsy crate full of particularly volatile healing-type potions from the dungeons up to the Infirmary- as a personal favor to one of his least favorite teachers. Slughorn, the pandering little toad, and his excuses that he couldn't trust delicate potions of this nature to the rigours of the Floo network. Oh the things he did to keep up his sterling reputation.

Libya was contentedly tucked away into her corner of his bedroom, having labelled the Head Girl as throughly unsuitable to share the same air with either of them. He wasn't entirely sure weather it was her taste in strawberry scented lipgloss, (lathered on like engine oil) or the fact that she had obviously bought her way into the position. Maybe it was her annoying cheerful, "Hiya Tommy!" that had made his teeth hurt with it's insincere saccharine sweetness. Either way, she would be requesting new dorms soon enough, he would be sure of that.

The Infirmary always smelled like antiseptic, the same clinical sterile smell that seemed etched into every memroy he had of hospitals- Muggle or magical. The rows of impersonal white sheeted beds, lined up like soldiers on review. The folding curtains on wheeled rails, the only thing passing for privacy in this place. In a few weeks, the bedside tables would be dotted with slowly fading flowers, and empty boxes of sweets brought by friends, and those who wanted to be more. And the windows would be shut, but open to the sun, trying to dispel the fear that would grip the patients when they woke in the night.

Gracefully moving over to the office by the door, Tom tapped on it lightly with his foot. He didn't dare balance it on one hand, the crate really was of the most shoddy workmanship imaginable. He was sort of dimly surprised that it had managed to survive the trip up the stairs at all. After a second tap on the door, he could only assume that Madam McAllister was out of the Infirmary at the moment.

Setting the box down on a nearby table, Tom was about to leave for the comfort of his dorm, when a bed at the far end of the long, narrow room caught his eye. Greyish white screens were pulled tight in around the bed, no light or movement disturbing the almost tomblike stillness. It was the same aura that surrounded the stairwell as that Myrtle girl had been taken out on a stretcher. The feeling that something had gone terribly, terribly wrong.

The sun had long since set below the horizon, and he could make out the first stars through the high casement windows lined high up the walls. Elongated shadows and patches of light turning the floor into a striped mosiac of shades. A sort of preternatural stillness that filled the entire room, his own curiosity driving away what human nervousness might had been urging him to turn away. That maybe, just maybe, he didn't want to know what was behind that screen.

But it was pointless to wonder, because either way, Tom didn't feel those twinges of nerves. His cool, measured movements held an almost mechanical grace; his writing freakishly regular, if beautiful to look at. An automated man with a face like one of the depictions of the saints. There was one woman at the Orphanage that would cross herself whenever he passed her. Mouthing his own words to the evening prayers, no place in his soul for devotions to a God that either hated him, or just didn't exist. He was leaning towards the latter.

His pressed, but slightly worn, black school robes swished softly around his ankles, sounding louder in the still of the Infirmary. There was a small gap in the shadowy screens that had been pulled around the bed. He had to give his eyes a moment to adjust to the even deeper shadows within the enclosure, and longer yet when he realized that the young girl he saw lying there was nobody he had ever seen before.

Her skin was the color of bleached bone, reflecting the pale silvery moonlight like the flesh of a corpse. Her hands were folded on her stomach, the sleeves of the hospital gown trailing down to nearly cover fingers that were too thin. Her cheeks were hollowed as if by pain or long illness, a fragility that he had only seen once before in his life. Her hair curled into tight spirals that fanned out around her face like a dark halo. And not a breath of movement, as still as death or patience she lay there.

Tom Riddle could count the number of time in his life he had been moved to crave something which was illogical. He could count them on one hand, and still have fingers to spare. But in that moment, the desire to touch her was almost painful to resist. To see if she was even still breathing, this creature that lay here looking so peaceful. To know if her skin had been touched by the icy chill of death, a sweet Snow White in her coffin.

Pulling away from his place at the edge of the screen, Tom turned on his heel. His footfalls sounded with muffled thuds against the stone floor, and only just in time. As he passed through the Infirmary doors, he was met by none other then Madam McAllister herself. Brought up short by her cheerful smile, hauling himself back to the reality with a brutal jerk.

"Ahh, Mr. Riddle, pleasure to see you again." She greeted him, tucking her bag of simple cures under one arm. The usual first year nonsense of upset stomachs and students too nervous and scared to sleep. A few years practice had taught her that it was easier to visit each of the houses seperately, quickly, then wait for the scared little ones to make their way through the dark hallways to her.

His reply was as curteous and cool as it every was, showing not a flicker of anything in the dark grey pools that were his eyes. "Good evening, Madam.. I see you have a patient already. Transfer student?" He asked with nothing more then civil curiousity in his voice. The matronly woman shook her head, shrugging the bag to the opposite hip.

"No, that's the funny thing- she just sort of popped into the Great Hall a few hours before the train arrived. We're not really sure how she got there, to be honest."

If anyone had ever in their lives taken the time to really watch Tom Riddle, they would have noticed that his footsteps as he left the Infirmary were maybe, just a shade, faster then usual.

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Hey guys, I hope you're enjoying everything so far. Just a reminder that I live off of reviews, and some input would be wonderful!


	5. Tarot

_Jukebox Plays: My Skin, Natalie Merchant_

**Chapter 5**

It was always interesting how after a while, classrooms began to take on characteristics of the lessons taught within them, and of the people who did the teaching. Potions, for example, were finicky and prone to explosions. The lab was set in the dungeons, sturdy and secure, and seemingly stronger then the concoctions created by it's less-talented students. It was grey and black, with a low roof that came within inches of making student feel claustrophobic. In fact, the only thing that really stood out was the desk of the presiding Professor Slughorn. The desk was a awash with little luxuries, fine and brightly colored- perfect for the man that sought attention for everything he did.

And the Divination classroom was no different. It was light and airy, with a high vaulted ceiling that trailed ribbons and sheets of misty gauze. Pale pinks and lavender, delicate china for teacups and frothy lace tying the whole mess together. All in all, in Tom's opinion, it suited such a foolish study perfectly. Divination had always seemed to be such a complete and utter waste of time. A bunch of formerly respecable wizards and witches staring blankly into soggy tea leaves; trying to divine the future instead of living it. Waiting for the warp and weft of the cosmos to ring in the changes they desired, instead of going out and making the changes themselves.

So naturally, when Tom opened his class schedule for the year, it would be Divination that was the first subject for the morning. Obviously a mistake, the small attached note informed him, that would be corrected within a few days. It was written in the tentative, spidery scrawl of Headmaster Dippet, possibly the most ridiculous excuse for a Headmaster that the Ministry of Magic could appoint.

Tom Marvolo Riddle did not squirm. He did not fidget, and he most certainly did not wiggle around in his seat like most of the other students in his direct line of sight. But one this could be said, for a classroom so entirely stuffed with fluff- pillows that were only slightly larger then a human palm did not make for comfortable seats. Professor Noseworthy didn't seem affected by it however, perched on one of the irritating pillows in some form of crosslegged yoga position. Her eyes seemed permanently glazed over, her thin body layered in lace and beaded what-nots. He gazed out into the little village of round tables that filled her class room, and gave a somewhat vacant smile.

"Good morning, and welcome to the first day of Divination… The fates have decreed that we shall begin our studies with one of the most well-known methods, being Tarot cards…" Here her voice trailed off, as she paused for a more dramatic effect, "Who would like to be first to have their future told by the cards?"

Tom's quiet desire to just tune out the class entirely was destroyed a moment later, by a familiar chirpy voice offering up four simple words, "What about Tommy here?!" The Head Girl piped up, giggling. The rest of the class turned to him, like a pack of wild gossip-hyenas, practically salivating for some tidbit of secret information about the habitually reticent Head Boy. Tom swallowed back a long suffering sigh, realizing two things simultaneaously.

One, that there was very little he could say to get him out of being volunteered into this charade; and Two, that he was going to have to do something about Polly-Anne Parkinson sooner, rather then later. Apparently she wasn't going to be content with just drooling over him whenever he entered their shared Common Room- she was going to make trouble for his grades as well. He was going to have to find a way to convince the irritating Hufflepuff that her place was with the rest of the dimwitted masses, and most certainly nowhere near him.

Professor (and he used the term very loosely in relation to her) Noseworthy waved him up to the front of the class with a limp wristed gesture. Her free hand was slowly and methodically shuffling a well worn deck of cards. They were larger then normal playing cards, more then twice the size, and bore a faded green Romani spiral design on the back. He made his way between the tables, distantly aware of the intense stares of his fellow classmates burning into the back of his head. Most people would have shuffled, or blushed- not Tom. His step never faltered, his expression never changed. He wouldn't give them the satisfaction of letting them unnerve him.

Without ado, the faintly buggy-looking woman waved a hand over the pink clothed table that sat (a little wobbly) in front of her. "The first card is for the past, the second is the present…The third, the future. All must be read to understand the meaning behind the reading." She intoned, laying down three cards face up on the table.

_**The Wheel of Time The Lovers Death**_

The images were as faded as the Romani spirals, faintly sepia yellow colored by age and handling by Merlin knows how many hands. Professor Noseworthy studied the cards carefully, humming and murmuring under her breath, waiting while the rest of the class peered around eachother- striving for the best viewpoint of the cards and the Head Boy.

The Wheel of Time showed three women, sitting before a large, black spinning wheel. The first was young and beautiful, clothed in white. The second of middle age, robed in red. The final held a pair of shears, slicing through the thread that the other two tended. She was old, and her robes were that of black. Even though the card was faded, it appeared that they dwelled in a cave, the light out the outside world just barely visible as if from a great distance away.

"Leaving your life is a great change, and upheaval.- Weather for good or ill, we do not know."

The second card, The Lovers, portrayed a young man holding a golden apple. Before him stood three Godesses, though which ones Tom couldn't quite make out. They appeared beautiful to the man, but he did not look happy at all by their attentions. Indeed, it was the apple that seemed to be the focus of their triple gaze.

"The present is a choice in Love. A difficult decision, yes…very difficult." At this, all of the girls in the class gasped, giggling childishly.

The final card was a depiction of the Grim Reaper, standing in a field of grain. The stars shone overhead, the black f the sky seeming to blend in with the darkness of the Reaper's flowing robes. In the distance, the light of dawn was spreading over the horizon, though it had not progressed enough to illuminate the Reaper, or his hooded features.

"And finally, class, we have Death! Not his own, but the end of the life he knows now. How painful this ending is, Mr Riddle, is entirely your own decision."

Professor Noseworthy caught his eye, as though trying to peer around the walls the he had erected there. Fortifications to keep interfering busybodies at more then arms reach. After a moment, she shook her head sadly, waving him away with the same limp gesture she used before. The bangle bracelets on her wrists tinkled like tiny chimes when she moved, and Tom found the noise to be oddly jarring.

_Rubbish, all of it._

He reminded himself. His future was indelible, set in stone from the moment he was born into the bloodline of Salazar Slytherin. Chicanery and nonesense, as he sat down to jot down finish the assignment. _What do I think the reading means for me? _He pondered for a moment, touching the end of his quill lightly into the reservoir of black ink. It didn't much matter what he said, as long as it was in some way logical. His writing was neat and precise, each loop and line perfectly, mechanically neat. Almost freakishly elegant and orderly.

**I believe the three cards of "The Wheel of Time," "The Lovers," and "Death" refer to my graduation at the end of the year, and the many choices I will have to face once leaving the security of school.**

That should do it. Give the teacher a bit of an ego boost, and she was sure to accept it. Weather or not it was complete rubbish mattered not a bit. It sounded plausible enough, while being dull and interesting enough to be passed over and forgotten. Why people persisted in trying to find meaning behind random cards was beyond him. A way of consoling themselves that the twists of capricious Fate were not entire random, he supposed.

Tom Riddle had never allowed for people to question him, or his motives. It was this logic that he plied against himself much later that night, as he made his way down the slowly grinding staircases towards the Infirmary. His excuse to the world, that he was the Head Boy, and had every right to check on the condition of a seriously ill or injured student.

The fact that she wasn't a student.. Well, even in his own mind he tried not to look too carefully at it. Instead, he told himself that anything would be better then the endless rounds of big band music that Polly-Anne seemed determined to use to drive him off the edge of the Astronomy Tower. Had she better realized the type of person she was aggravating, she may have been sure that it was more likely to lead to _her _being tossed off said Astronomy Tower, and followed by a quick and intimate acquaintence with the soil below.

The only light in the Infirmary came from under the office door, as Tom walked by as quietly as he could. Not that he would call it sneaking- no, but his reputation made sure that people saw him as such a nice, helpful lad; that he would be loathe to interrupt her work.

The moon was a little higher in the sky tonight, casting the shadows a little more sharply against the wall. The constellations were half missing from sight, cut off by the deep ledges of the high, narrow windows. And tonught, his footsteps made less noise, and Tom cautiously made his way down the centre of the Infirmary ward. The curtains pulled closely around the bed seemed to be unmoved from the night before. Surely they would be moved if she had passed away between then and now.

And indeed, there she was. As still as Death, and unaltered. Her long lashes cast faint shadows against the slight crest of her cheekbone, her hands still folded in unnatural precision against the blanket tucked around her slender body.

As he lay awake much later that night, Tom wouldn't be able to define the exact moment he gave into the desire of the night before. All he knew was that it was no less diminshed for it's 24 hour intermission. Reaching foreward, his arm the only part of him he dared to move. Or perhaps, that it seemed to move with a mind of it's own- to brush his fingertips softly, sparingly, across her hand. She was cool to the touch, but not with Death's clammy chill.

He wouldn't press Time (or Madam McAllister's excellent timing), turning abruptly and leaving the Infirmary by the same route he entered. His fingers tingled from the incredibly rare sensation of touching another person. And maybe tonight he walked a little slower then usual, stopping halfway down the hall to glance back at the double Infirmary doors.

And he couldn't even explain to himself why he was a little bit relieved that she wasn't gone.

- ---

A million thanks to everyone who has taken the time to review, it means so much to me!

And Dri Almighty? Here's a longer chapter, just because you wanted it.

And Nerys, because your beautiful review came at just the right time to brighten up a bad moment.


	6. Pulling Away

_Jukebox Plays- the same as the last few chapters!_

**Chapter 6**

The Head's dorms were unlike any other in the school. Gone was the need for space for a dozen beds, a dozen dressers, a dozen people. In it's place were smaller alcoves with room for one person to live quite comfortably. A large four poster bed stood just off the centre of the room, a set of drawers pushed up against the far wall. A desk sat beneath the deep set window that started at waist height, and ended up near the beams of the ceiling. A small living room was down a short flight of stairs, to be shared by both of the Heads. Most years, it also became the space that was used for the prefects meetings.

But the biggest difference between the Head dorms and the standard ones were the colors. Gryffindor was a riot of scarlet and gold, bold in their hot headed bravery. Ravenclaw was subdued, a studius blend of blue and bronze. Hufflepuff was filled with warm and homely golds and tan brown. The Slytherin dorms were chill and aloof, the cold silver and dark greens covering every available surface. The Head dorms however were styled in the taste of the person living in them- a long practiced effort to promote fairness. Distancing the teenagers from favoring one house overall. Sometimes it worked, sometimes not.

Tom Riddle liked green. Not because it was the primary color of his house and heritage, but because it was a pleasant color. It was the color of evergreens and mint, the beech leaves on the tree in the corner of the Orphanage yard. Dark it was protection, a hidden place for him to be alone with his thoughts. Light, it was fresh and renewing, like the tiniest new buds of spring. He didn't wax poetic on the subject, nor did he spent the effort to really analyze why- Tom liked the color green, and there was no reason to dissect it any further.

But even the comfortable calmness that was his room, was not up to the task of blocking out the incredibly loud music that the Head Girl was currently playing in their Common Room. Had it been in her own dorm, then he could have blocked it out with a simple silencing spell- but alas, the Founders in their great wisdom had decided that the adjoining room could not be blocked out; in case of emergency.

The upbeat, Big Band tunes of the Glenn Miller Orchestra had been almost tolerable at first. The second time the strains of "Pennsylvania 6-5000" echoed up the stairs, and slipped beneath the door, Tom took note of the slow building headache inching through his brain. The third, and he knew he had to get out of there.

_Traitor.._ Libya hissed at him, as he carefully laid her back in the habitat he had transfigued for her on his first day. It had everything she could possibly want- except for a reprieve from the awful clanging noise that human's called music. Slithering over to a large, flat rock, Libya coiled herself up into a tight spiral; flickering her tongue out at Tom for good measure. An unapolagetic shrug was all she received for her trouble, as Tom checked his wand tucked up his left sleeve, and ducked out the door.

It was still a few hours until the older years curfew, and the halls were filled with students milling around. Greeting eachother, and yelling hellos from down the corridors, new couples whispering sweet nothings to eachother in voices so low only they could hear. Tom moved through it all, the busy crush of youths parting in front of him; more then one story had made it's way around the school of his volatile temper. No matter that those rumors hadn't been true for years… Tom hadn't lost his chilly calm for quite some time. Nobody was entirely sure why, only that it had been sometime during the summer between his 4th and 5th year.

The Library had seemed like the obvious choice, but tonight when he so desired peace and quiet, it had been overtaken with Slytherins. Malfoy and Black and Lestrange gathered close at one of the round tables, their doting admirers clustered around, giggling and hanging off their every word. No, what he needed was silence, and having those baboons start a quarrell with him would be the exact opposite of what he was looking for.

He just didn't have the stomach for the usual taunts of 'Tainted,' 'Unworthy'. 'Disgusting,' and whatever the nickname for this year would be. The fact that he had been labelled head Boy may dissuade them for a time, but Tom knew well enough that it wouldn't last forever. They fed off of making his schooldays a misery, a delight that he had hoped would wane when he stopped rising to their jibes. It was one of the few time in his life that he would truly admit to being very, very wrong.

One day though, he would make them all kneel before him. It was his most cherished dream, had kept him strong in the back of his mind since his first year. Of a time when he would rise over them all, terrible and grand and show them that their blood purity was nothing but ashes in the face of the great lineage of Salazar Slytherin. One day, when the memory of the boy they had taunted was long erased and buried. And he would be something powerful, and more then they could ever hope to be.

And things would be better then, for everyone.

His feet carried him through the laughter of the students, his thoughts a million miles away from his own body. Snapped back to reality that he had left the bustle and the noise, and the hallways around him were quiet. The large double doors of the Infirmary stood ajar, and even Tom was aware of the irony that this is where he would find himself. Still, it would be quiet. And with that in mind, he slipped silently through the crack in the door.

There was a distinct feeling of déjà vu as he made his way across the floor. Like the entire scene had been pulled out of his memories and made flesh and stone in front of his eyes. The sun was setting, the shadows that trekked across the walls were the color of ripe plums, limned in dusky golden light. The curtains at the end of the hall stood still as sentries, a clear warning of _Do Not Pass._

Tom had never been very good at listening to rules he felt didn't apply to him. The pink hues of sunset ghosted over the delicate cheekbones of the girl who lay there- imitation life, counterfeit health. She was as still as ever, three days and she never changed. Not a smile or anything to mark the passing of time to her.

A chair though, had been added to her beside. It was empty, seemingly placed there for no logical reason. Tom looked at the chair for a long moment, as it trying to fathom what it could possibly be doing there, in this space. As though it were an interloper in this scene, out of place. But, seeing that it didn't jump up, or do anything remotely interesting, Tom decided that it would be foolish indeed to stand there at the juncture of the screens, and sat down.

In the fading light, he could make out the fine tracework of blue veins beneath her pale skin. The gentle, barely perceptible rise and fall of each breath leaving and entering her body. That alone was something, a movement as small as it was.

As long as she didn't stop, then he knew she would be alright. And it was such a small thing, but Tom refused to allow himself to dwell on the fact that he, inexplicably, wanted her to live. That silently in his mind, he acknowledged that he wanted to know who she was- what she was doing here. She was the riddle that even he couldn't begin to fathom the answer to- and he wouldn't waste his time on pointless theories.

What mattered was that she was here, and as long as she was breathing, then there might yet be hope. He blinked sharply, eyelids slashing quickly over grey eyes. Grey eyes that, should a person be looking very, very closely, weren't entirely the color of ash. Deep in them, dwelled the tinyest flicker of color. Green or blue, like a light beneath a fathomlessly endless ocean.

_**Hope.**_

As rare to him as anything he had ever felt, faint as it was. Like a fine, anemic butterfly that was trying to escape from his ribcage. Tom swallowed hard, pushing himself up from the chair sharply. He didn't need this, it was pathetic. The childish desires of someone who didn't already have their life mapped out. He would be great, he could be everything he had ever dreamed of and more! And to do that, he did not need her.

Turning, he left the Infirmary without ever having said a word.

- ---

Thanks again to everyone who took the time to review, they really are the reason I update as fast as I do nudge nudge

Special thanks to Dri Almighty and Nerys though, for their incredibly wonderful reviews that I am quickly becoming addicted to! hands out cookies

Ans for those of you who are waiting for Hermione to wake up, try to be patient! She won't be like this forever.


	7. Hermione's Dream

**Chapter 7**

Magic is energy. Most mutable and fixed, chaotic and stable.. Wonderful and terrible depending on who wields it's power. But in the end, magic is energy- neutral, devoid of preference or alignment. I had had the power to begin life and end it, create the greatest loves, and the most tragic heartaches. There is magic in the energy that flows between two people, and weather for good or for ill, this energy can effect our lives in ways we have never comprehended before.

It just takes the spark, the catalyst, to set into motion what few have ever seen play out before. A once in several lifetimes occurance when two people, even for just a moment, fall entirely, perfectly into synch. In that moment it becomes magic of it's own making, as elemental as Fate and just as strong. It cannot be predicted or planned, and the results are never the same twice. Nature creates it in individuality, the perfect wavelength for them, and them alone.

Hermione believed she was dead. Floating weightless through an empty greyish blackness, neither light nor dark- a featureless nothing that spread on passed Infinity. In this place there was no time, only an endless supply of peace and lonliness. They existed here in a strange, hollow harmony. A Limbo where there was neither success nor failure, and knowledge and life meant nothing. A silence that did nothing to detract from the only thought she could grasp..

_I failed._

Visions of the corpses of the Wizarding world assailed her, tormented her with the fact that she had failed. The brightest witch of her age, brought down by dark magic and greed. So many lives, good lives, traded for the ambitions of the pureblooded aristocracy. In the end, there were all the same. All dead. All broken and bloody and scattered across the soil like a macabre garden of viscera. Blank eyes that reflected her face in their hollow nothingness.

She hadn't even had the strength to turn the dials back, just long enough to warn them. A few hours, that's all it would have taken. But there was nothing to save there anymore. Men, women, children, all gone. Nobody to carry on the stories, their stories, of the incredible heroism she had seen. The Dark Lord was gone, but what did it matter when nobody was left to be liberated?

She did not know how long she had existed there, in that strange place that was not a place, when she saw far in the distance, a tiny, shining light. It was a hard light, barely larger then a pinpoint, piercing the dusky gloom that had become her world. Steadily she moved towards it, the only anchor in this endless place. Slowly drawing nearer to the burning luminescence until it pressed in against her skin. Torturing her non-existant ears with forgotten sound. Scorching her eyes with light and color, as though waking from a deep sleep.

Hermione didn't know if she screamed, in her agony if she tried to claw her way back to the comfort of the Nothing. Weather she listened to that part of her mind that revelled in the ability to _feel_ again. That the pain mattered nothing compaired to the numbness that had spread into her bones. And it a flash of color and sound, her limbs tingling with the pains of a hundred thousand pins and needles- Hermione remembered living.

She found herself standing in a hospital, nurses and doctors milling around in old fashioned Muggle scrubs and suits. There was a door to the left of her, open a crack, through which she could hear quiet voices. But when she lifted her croaking, sore voice to attract the attention of one of the nurses on shift, the woman looked straight through her. Hermione waved her hand against one of the cream colored walls, watching in disgusted detachment as her hand passed through the solid plaster and drywall.

Her hands looked to her as they always had, small and delicate with slightly long fingers, and a palm that was vaguely squared. A palmist had told her that it was an intellectual, practical hand- not too prone to flights of fancy, but with a touch of the magic about her. That was the summer after her first year at Hogwarts; and Hermione could remember laughing.

But now it seemed such a long way away, the sensation of laughter and joy lost in the malaise left by the Nothing. Trapped behind the memories of the bodies and black magic, clinging on by the barest of threads.

Eventually it seemed there wasn't much else to do but look around, the rational part of her mind supplying that it would be a very good idea to figure out where exactly (to say nothing of '**what**' and '**why**', which could be dealt with later) she was. She glanced into the room to her left, careful, despite the knowledge that they probably couldn't see her. It was just ingrained, caution and constant vigilance… Hermione shoved back the memory of Alistair Moody almost brutally.

Sitting in the room were two people, a middle aged doctor with a white lab coat, and graying hair. His face was sturdy, reliable, a trustworthy sort of face that set people at ease. His eyes were the color of aged wood, and twinkled from behind an old fashioned pair of wire-rimmed spectacles.

The other was possibly one of the most attractive children she had ever seen. The young boy looked about 6 or 7, and perched on the end of the paper covered bed very carefully. He cradled his arm against his chest, hair the color of ebony falling into eyes of an indeterminate color. His skin was ashen and waxy with obvious pain, and though he was clearly trying to be tough, the tracks of died tears still stuck to his cheeks.

"This is going to hurt, right?" asked the little boy in a quiet voice. The doctor opened his mouth, before looking more closely at the child and shutting it again.

"A bit, yes… But it has to be done, you understand?" He asked after a moment's pause, and Hermione could practically see the hamster running laps inside his mind. The little boy nodded, allowing the Doctor to come near enough to examine the injured arm. It was bent at a hideous angle, right against the bone above the elbow. Blood slowly seeped from a puncture wound left by a sharp fragment of bone that still pierced the skin.

She distantly noted that the old Hermione would have wanted to rush foreward, to save this incredibly brave child from the obvious pain he was about to experience. Knowing magic that could make the process easier- but all her numb heart could manage was a detached concern. Her empathy locked away with joy and laughter, the human parts she had pushed to the side and boxed away, to do what had needed to be done.

The key to that chest lost in the Nothing.

"I'll be back in a moment, alright Tom?" the Doctor asked the little boy with the worn and patched clothing. The child, Tom nodded, but didn't say anything more until the Doctor had left the room, and was well out of earshot. Casting a hateful look down at his useless arm, he shook his head in a child's mimicry of a long-suffering adult.

"I'll show them… They say I can't, but I will. I'll be a doctor, I know I'm smart enough."

And with that, the vision, the dream faded. Hermione blinked hard against the encroaching Nothing, her whole body trembling as she fought against it- stuggling until the last moment to cling to the colors. But it was no use… The Nothing returned in all it's unavoidable emptyness. Hermione felt then, the clear and cutting despair of losing what she had forgotten she once had.

- ---

Hey guys! Just a couple of quick things… One, thanks to everyone who took the time to review the last chapter! Beautiful dreamer, Full moon girlie, ivory, Annikacan (and don't worry about the questions, really!) and Svelte Rose.

As well, anyone who is a fan of Naruto, go check out 'The Almost Date" by Glimia, and tell her what a wonderful first fic it is!


	8. Forgotten Nights

_Dedicated to Speed of Darkness, who's entirely random 'Tom in a clown costume' comment inspired this chapter._

**Chapter 8**

It was the middle of the night when Libya was woken by the sounds of tossing and turning in the med to the right of her terrarium. Moonlight crept around the edges of the heavy drapes that covered the tall, thin windows. Curtains that were a rich forest green in the light, but in these midnight hours were the amorphous shapes of the deepest black. The tiny slivers of silver light barely penetrated the shadows filling the space beneath the canopy of the bed. Just enough to illuminate the sole occupant thrashing at the sheets, his legs tangled hopelessly in the fine cotton.

Two nights now, he had done this. Moaned and cried out into his pillows- to remember nothing come the dawn. Extracting himself from the Gordian knots that he had made of his bed in the night, and never questioning the change from his usual stillness. But Libya knew better, from her third person perspective, watching as it was his very detachment that hid the answers from him.

The problem was, she didn't know what was causing the dreams in the first place. His moans were unintelligible, muffled consonants and vowels threaded together somewhere deep in his subconscious. Tonight was worse then it had been before and where once there had been breathless murmurs and half swallowed moans- now replaced by the ragged edges of cries that tore at the silence. Moonlight glittering off the myriad tears that wetted his cheeks. A fearful, desperate hand that clawed at the pillows, dragging them close before throwing them violently away.

The little green snake watched with rapt attention at the spastic, jerky motions that had moved into the place of Tom's usual mechanical grace. Beautiful in his torment, an exquisite picture of the sheer agony the human soul could possess. And for the first time since she had met the quiet boy, Libya was frightened. Scared of the depths of emotion he hid from himself- that it would manifest in his dreams this way it could not be healthy.

And so she watched, waiting for whatever it was he dreamed, to pass through. For the lighter shades of rest to pull him from whatever horrors it was he was facing. For with dawn would come the oblivion of forgetfulness. When the subconscious would be locked away, along with the memory of his dreams. Leaving him entirely unaware that he had even dreamt at all. His armor in place so well that it tricked even himself.

When he was younger, Tom had gone through a phase of dream interpretation- curious to know if any of his nocturnal tales were signs of greater things to come. An almost pathological need to know that while he envisioned himself, garbed in a clown suit and handing out cookies (all the while being chased by Malfoy and Lestrange bearing whips) that it was a sign of something.

Of course, such dreams were only the visual reminders of his own fears. The way he couldn't bear to be made to look foolish, his own secret shame that his father had been a filthy Muggle. Someone who's blood was not even fit to carry the traces of the minutest magics.

Later, his despair that the line of Salazar Slytherin had faded into such a pitiable state. But he would be greater, and he would once again bring honor and glory to a blood that had lost its way. He would… He had to. And so away went the dream reading, to dust with Divination in all of its forms.

He was Tom Riddle, and he would make his path.

_The sensation of choking, suffocating tears that burned in his throat. Scalded his eyes, and refused to fall. _

_The little stone marker, cheap and chipped, his handful of daisies already wilting at the base._

_A child's grave, made to be forgotten. A name, no dates, no words of comfort. _

_Made to be forgotten._

_Emily…_

_The grass blending from green, to ash grey and white... To red._

_Becoming a carpet of corpses that littered the Great Hall._

_The crimson and burgundy that stained his hands, dark against the bodies._

_But the hands were not his own._

_The hospital bed, hands folded one to the other._

_Set against a field of white, a utilitarian gown._

_Pain that sliced through him…_

_Not his body. _

_A girl, a stranger. _

_Blending features, the hollowed cheeks filling._

_Brown curls fading to the color of honey._

_Who are you?_

Tom awoke with a jerk, the alarm spell set on his wand beeping annoying in the early morning light. He yawned, brushing the still messy black hair from his eyes. Blinking against the light, he didn't notice the intense way his familiar watched him. Warily, as though waiting for something to happen.

But it didn't, as the young man rose from his bed and began the same ritual he did every morning. His movements like liquid, moving through the familiar motions. All traces of the almost primal clawing gone, as though those jerky actions had been by another person entirely. Or maybe, that they had been made by a marionette, fashioned in the likeness of this man.

Libya suspected it was the other way around. That the Tom she saw, the one currently sweeping textbooks into a well worn bag- was not the real Tom at all. She watched as he rubbed his eyes against the back of his hand, a childish gesture he had never quite managed to rid himself of. At least, not when he was still half asleep. The green snake shook her wedge-shaped head, amazed and aghast that two such incredibly different people could exist within one shell.

_Tom..?_ She hissed, her sensitive tongue picking up the scent of sweat and salt and stress that still lingered in the air. Small, trivial things that human senses could never hope to pick up. She watched as her dear man looked at over at her, his expression a query that didn't require words. Libya looked him over carefully, searching his expression for something- anything- that would betray what he was feeling. But to no avail, it was a blank that met her eyes.

_Never mind, have a good day… _She said, and he spared her an odd look before heading out the door.

- ---

Hey guys, I'm so sorry it's been so long since I've updated!! But you know how real life is, and I have been house sitting for the last few days. Now I'm back though, and working to get back into the swing of this story, and fresh with a whole bunch of new ideas. Sorry if this chapter sucked though, it just refused to come out how I wanted it to (

So there you have it, after several rewrites, I'm pretty sure it's just not going to cooperate anymore then this.

Svelte Rose- here's the chapter, now you can't call me a tease anymore )

BlindFaith- no Voldie in scrubs, but better luck next time!

Speed of Darkness- I hope my writing style is still growing on you; I'm a bit like mold that way.

Ryn- You can consider your push effective, apparently it works better then nudging

Nerys- No 'Mione this time around, but hopefully suitably tragic

And an enormous thank you to everyone else I didn't mention- after this, I'm going to start keeping notes so I don't feel so guilty about forgetting people!!!


	9. The Alice Connection

_Jukebox Plays- Remembering Jenny, from BtVS (beautiful instrumental, as a note.)_

**Chapter 9**

Hermione searched the endless gray nothing, eyes focused for the barest hint of light or change in the shifting mists. Even the pains of being compressed into a physical form, nothing compared to her deathly fear of spending eternity wandering through this Nothing place. She did not know how long she waited, staring out into the vast and unknowable distance, before she heard the voices.

Quiet at first, maddening whispers in the ethereal fog. Paused, waiting to hear them again. So faint that it was impossible to make out words or names from the sound. Straining in the dense muteness, wishing and praying for something, for someone, for anything to break the hopeless monotony of the Nothing. Of the void which stretched on forever- and then, the voices again.

"_Incredible save, Harry!"_

"_I can't believe we got out of that in one piece."_

"_Damn Malfoy, doesn't know what he's talking about."_

"_I don't know what Ron sees in you."_

"_The brightest witch of her age"_

So familiar, so safe, yet gone forever. But she couldn't block it out, the chorus of a million phrases heard before. A fresh blade on the knife of her despair, like clinging to a raft that is slowly sinking beneath you. Unable to reach for the lifeline, because it would mean leaving the familiar. No matter that it will do you no good, praying your fears are unfounded.

In her formless state, there were no tears to cry. No mouth to form any sound to express her grief. Finally, desperately trying to force the guilt of her own failure into the box. The chest that held fear and joy, and hope. Distancing herself from the memories that threatened to overwhelm her- in a place where there was nowhere to hide. No wall or rock or anything; just the empty Nothing that afforded her no shelter.

"Ye'll have t'go back eventually, ye know." Came a voice from behind her. At least, 'behind' was relative, it could have been above or below, or any other direction in the mad place. It was a familiar voice, a soft Scottish brogue that didn't seem as tied to the guilt as the other sweet siren whispers. She turned then, half out of her own inability to place this new voice.

Short, dark hair. Bright, kind eyes that looked so very sad, as though the message he bore brought him no joy. His dark red sweater was frayed at the cuffs and collar, (_You know, my mum's don't wind out like that…_ she remembered someone saying.) And he was far too young to look so very old. Of all the people she could have ever imagined to guide her to the afterlife- he was not one of them.

"Oliver?" She asked after a long moment's hesitation. The Hermione of old would have analyzed, wondered why now she could speak; contemplated why it would be him and not one of her nearest and dearest, that had come to save her from this place. But this Hermione did neither; reaching out with hands she did not recall having.

The figure shook his head, taking her hand in both of his and patting it lightly. Hermione looked down to where her hand rested between his larger ones, and choked back the urge to cry. Tears that scalded, a lump in her throat she could not swallow. For the first time in so very, very long to feel she was not alone. And it didn't matter to her that she had barely paid two knuts attention to him in life, what mattered was that he was here now.

"No, I'm not. Ye're not ready to face yet, all ye've seen- but neither can ye stay here any longer. Still alive, and this is no place for ye. That's why ye see me though; because this face isn't tied to the pain'an the guilt. Go… We'll all be 'ere when ye're ready to accept it."

Her stomach hurt, a pain that lanced bitter cold up from across her hip. Infected with the slithery chill of Dark Magic; she knew at once it was the very wound which had laid her low in the first place. Hermione panicked then, grasping at Oliver's hands with all of her might, begging him in a broken voice to please, please not make her go back! That she wasn't ready to face the word, she wasn't strong enough to make her way back through the Nothing. There was no path, no guide; she would be lost here forever.

"Please don't do this! Don't let me go!" She cried, clawing at the hands that were slowly fading away beneath her. Leaving her once more alone in the silence, devoid of the steady rock he had provided since his appearance. "Please Oliver! Please, don't leave me here alone!"

He shook his head once more, vanishing faster now into the misty Nothing void that surrounded them both. His sad eyes looked over her shoulder, staring at some point she could not see. "Jus' follow the light, it'll lead ye back." And with that, he was no more.

--

Everyone seemed to think that the Library at Hogwarts was merely a repository for books of knowledge. Texts and tomes of all shapes and sizes, to cover whatever your studying needs may be. So bogged down by their studies, their social lives and their laziness; very few students ever really realized that there was a whole section of fiction (Muggle and Magical) there at their fingertips to whisk them away into their own imagination.

The strange, worried looks from his familiar had eventually driven Tom from his dorm in annoyance. He was tired, and felt as though he had not slept at all the night before—despite the fact that he knew full well that he had gotten more then enough rest. And so it was, with his homework finished and hours left until his rounds, that the young man found himself at rather loose ends.

His fingers trailed lightly, almost reverently over the leather spines of the books. Stories and tales so familiar that reading them was almost like being back in his happiest moments. _Swiss Family Robinson…The Lord of the Rings…Peter Pan… _and there on the end, the slim, little battered red volume of _"Alice in Wonderland". _Like many things in his life, Tom would never admit to having a childhood love of the ridiculous story.

But when is a little boy, trapped in an Orphanage where 'homey' is the last word that comes to mind; being passed over week after week for younger, sweeter children… Well the works of Lewis Carroll were the next best thing to being free yourself. Where the laws of physics and gravity and sanity just don't apply anymore. A land where Magic was real.

These sentimental thoughts were pushed away with a bitter smirk. Turning the worn cover over in his hands, it was familiar though he had not picked it up in quite a few years. Three years, he reminded himself. He had not read this story since the June before he left his fourth year at Hogwarts. Weeks before… Tom slammed down on that though brutally, shoving it back into the far corner of his mind and locking it behind a wall of sheer will.

Tiny memories had been niggling his mind all day, like tiny little fish biting at a baited hook. Memories that he though he had done away with forever, now rising, unwanted, to the surface. Why today of all days, he had no idea. Slowly he closed his eyes, taking a shallow breath to calm his internal musings. It didn't matter after all, 'why today'- it was in the past, and in the past it would stay.

Of course, that didn't stop him from signing out the copy of Alice_ in Wonderland _on his way out of the library doors. And not a moment too soon, as he ducked around a corner to avoid the trio of Black, Lestrange and Malfoy. It galled him more then he would care to admit, avoiding the likes of those idiot purebloods. He consoled himself with the knowledge that his patience would win out in the end.

The doors to the Infirmary were always open a little, and tonight was no exception. Tom walked passed them carelessly, the little book folded loosely in his hand. He would not go in there. He didn't care weather the little witch lived or died… But… But could it really hurt just to check, and make sure?

He stopped, staring down at the solid, reliable gray stone under his black polished shoes. It was a quarrel he had with himself, curiosity waging war against the analyst that refused to give quarter. It was such a rare thing, really. Tom had prided himself for so long; on his clear and level headed thinking- that he had almost entirely forgotten what it was to face a quandary within yourself.

And for the second time that night, Tom closed his eyes and sighed. The sound was loud in the silent corridor, a tiny noise that anywhere else would have been entirely lost. A turn on his heel as he entered the doors- he would not ask himself why it was that option he chose. Simply making his way down to the end of the room, stepping lightly through the pools of sunset purple light that rested on the floors.

The Infirmary was quiet, the single other patient already off to the land of the Sandman with a draught of Dreamless Sleep potion. He clutched the book more tightly, a reflexive action that betrayed the calm he wore as a mask on his face. A minute flaw in the façade that was Tom Riddle's outward persona.

The chair stood where it had been before, empty beside the bed of this mystery Snow White. He stepped through the curtains that surrounded the area, a space that was theirs and theirs alone. And that was the though that undid his resolve, the very notion that this had become his refuge; his place away from the noise and the music and the strange looks. Where this Snow White didn't mock him for remaining silent, she asked for nothing, and he had nothing in that moment to give, save the truth.

Reaching out, he placed his free hand lightly over her cool ones, feeling the gentle pulse of her blood beneath the parchment skin. The curtains shadowed them from the rest of the world, gave him the clarity to see passed his own evasions and self betrayals- just for a moment, long enough to speak the words the pressed against the inside of his mind. As clear as a bolt of blue lightening in the fog of his thoughts. (That the words were not his own seemed not to matter, taken as they were from his favorite line in the book he held in his hand.)

"I can't explain myself, I'm afraid…" But the voice which finished the line was not his own. It was small and thin, and sounded as though it had not been used in a very long time.

"For I am not myself, you see."

Tom blinked hard; lifting his gaze to the face of the woman he had named Snow White in his mind. To her eyes, the color of dark chocolate in the shadowy light. To the beautiful frailty that hung around her like a martyr's halo, the broken soul that he could glimpse for a fraction of a second before it was gone. Hidden away inside the box that would not, could not, allow her to show him that much weakness.

And he stared at her for a long moment, memorizing and committing to memory every detail of her at that exact instant. So deeply surprised that he didn't move, not even aware that his hand was still resting against hers. Deaf to the sound of the little book falling to the chair beside him.

The second moment when these two existed on the same wavelength, lost for a brief second in time in their own little world. The rest of the universe just didn't matter, nor did they care that it couldn't be explained away with any logic, save for the next words that were pulled from straight from Tom's thoughts, and into existence.

"I didn't want you to die."

- ---

And there you have it, she is awake!

An immense thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter. You have no idea how much I was tempted to just take your advice and have him kiss her, Disney style )

Blindfaith- You wanted her awake, you have it.

Speed of Darkness- no Tom in a clown suit this time around, but I'll see what I can do… muse rolls eyes

Annikacan- you read the last chapter instead of studying, yikes! shoo's you off to the books

Ryn- Another vote for the kiss-and-wake-up method…or failing that, cold water. You know, I think a lot of people reading this would support that. But fear not, she's all un-coma'd now.

Jamie- Definetly not having them jump eachother. I understand that this is moving really slowly, and Im sorry if that's not working so well. But I just do what the muses demand.


	10. Veiled Greetings

_This chapter is dedicated to the amazing Nerys, for reminding me that writing is love, and that's why I do this. Thank you so very very much, I don't know if I could have finished this chapter tonight if it wasn't for your excellent timing._

**Chapter 10**

The trip through the searing light was less terrifying the second time around. Her mind accepted that there would be a level of pain involved, and she braced herself against the burning sensation that was her conscious mind awakening into the tactile feelings of her own flesh and blood body. Once sense at a time filtering through her mind, layer upon layer of the physical world built up into the present moment.

The scent of antiseptic and coarse hospital soaps. Of bitter smelling tinctures and spicy sweet potions, balm and blood and everything else that made up the familiar aroma of every infirmary she had ever been in. Combined and contrasted with the tang of wintergreen and peppermint, and the almost vinegary scent of ink. Smells that did not belong to the sickness here, something special.

Sound came next, filtering into long deaf ears. Heightened by the blind blackness behind her eyelids, nearly every sound coming muffled, as though from a distance, or through a door. Two sets of breath, one faint and peaceful, and the other halting and natural, as though pained or deep in thought. The second rhythm was unfamiliar, and Hermione paused for a moment to remember the pattern; a breath, a beat, two breaths, a beat... And on it went.

Taste and touch were next, the sticky, old-sock taste that comes of sleeping too long. Her tongue felt heavy and thick in her mouth, her throat aching from being unused for so long. Correction, in that her entire body ached. Muscles that had been strained, and then left too long without any motion at all. A deep and penetrating soreness that laced out from her left hip, the faint itchiness of flesh knitting slowly back together. A distant part of her mind questioned why it had not been healed by magic- and was pushed away for later examination.

Her body felt hollow and pitifully weak, laid amongst rough cotton sheets and wool blankets. The pillow beneath her head was thin and Hermione could feel tendrils of her wild curls tickling her cheek. But it was the touch that finally coerced her to open her eyes. A gentle, warm hand laid lightly across her own, an unfamiliar almost-caress. She matched the touch to the scent of wintergreen and mint, and her analytical mind pieced together this person as a stranger.

As she opened her sandy, gritty eyes, Hermione could feel her breath catch sharply in her chest. What met her eyes was something she could not have predicted, so much so that she could have almost sworn nothing could exist like that on this planet. Not her Earth, so blasted and ugly and filled with wretched people. This figure that stood before her was something almost otherworldly. A quote by Ralph Emerson slid neatly into her mind, "_Beauty is God's handwriting." _And if that were true, then this man was a great epic.

His whole being was surrounded in a corona of light, a pale golden aura the shade and hue of the setting sun. His hair was as black as ebony, framing a face that could only be described as beautiful. His face was a mask of concentrated though, as he stared down at where his hand rested against hers.

The eyes of this man were like nothing she had ever seen before. As veiled and gray as vault doors, shaded with black as he raised his gaze to the ceiling for a brief moment. Almost like a prayer, though to what God that vacant stare would beseech she could not even begin to guess. And then he spoke, his voice quiet and measured, and Hermione realized that no spirit would quote from Alice in Wonderland as her first herald to the afterlife.

"_I can't explain myself, I'm afraid…"_

And she finished the line, though it hurt to move her mouth around the shapes and syllables of speech. "For I am not myself, you see." The words were as familiar to her as home, taken from the pages of a book she had read a dozen times or more since she was very young. And while no saint would guide her to Heaven with the words, they were like the sweetest balm to her mind. Soothing away the residual fears of where she would find herself.

The young man looked at her, his eyes widening with surprise as he took in her now conscious form looking up at him. He had a gaze that looked through her, a moment in time that caught and paused against its usual flow. And it was barely more then a heartbeat, before those doors closed back against him, hiding whatever he might be feeling from her fruitless search.

"_I didn't want you to die."_

Came and went as though an afterthought, a small sentiment Hermione was fairly sure she was never supposed to hear. As she looked more carefully at him though, features pieced themselves out familiar, tugging at the back of her mind to where she had seen him before. But her mind was too tired, and too focused on the present to fill in the blanks, and so she pushed that too away for a time.

"I…" She began slowly, forcing her lips around the forms required to utter the English language. Her throat burned with pins and needles, dry and scratching like she had swallowed a sheet of harsh sandpaper. But apparently her noise was enough to snap this stranger more fully into the present, and he held his hand up slightly for her to stop.

"I'll get you some water."

His hand slid quickly, almost jerkily, away from her. Rapidly enough that she suspected he wanted (needed, more like,) a reason to be away from her. To compose his thoughts after her sudden awakening. Hermione blinked against the sudden chill that cooled her skin, she hadn't realized how natural his touch had seemed before it was taken away from her.

There were curtains surrounding her little cot, which would explain why so much of the ambient noise was silenced or muffled. Indeed, even his footsteps seemed father away once he stepped outside the realm of the hanging white sheets. Familiar looking sheets on old metal frames that clicked together as he slid them as quietly as he could, out of the way.

It was only a moment, though it seemed longer, until the handsome stranger reappeared at her bedside. In hand was a tall glass of water, tiny beads of moisture slipping down the side. Her body felt as though it was filled with lead weights, heavy and stiff and unwieldy, as she tried to sit herself up in bed. Her mouth was as dry as sand, as she pushed herself back against the headboard with agonizing slowness. She would not ask for help, she refused. Nor did she need it, though it was a close thing.

The glass felt slippery and awkward in her trembling hands as she held the cool edge to her lips. Hermione couldn't recall anything in the history of her life that had tasted to wonderful, quenching moisture to her parched body. Soothing away the burning roughness that had scratched and hurt when she had tried to speak. And for a long moment, eyes closed slightly, Hermione just let it begin to heal some of her aches.

The boy seemed content to watch her for the moment, his hand resting against the back of the chair he refused to sit it. Still, she could clearly see he was not relaxed- the tension in his body displaying how closely he listened to the world outside their sheeted enclave. When at last she set the glass down on the rickety little bedside table, Hermione asked him the question that she had wanted to ask before.

"Who are you?"

His mouth twitched a little at the side, as though he was resisting the urge to smirk or smile. His expression softened a little, as though minutely relieved that she wasn't going to do anything unexpected. Though, she wasn't quite sure what exactly he had been expecting.

"I'm Tom… And you?"

His voice was pitched low, obviously to avoid attracting unwanted attention. It was pleasant to listen to, a soft and even tone that didn't hitch or squeak. It wasn't demanding or embarrassed; and if anything, Hermione supposed that if it had a flaw, it would be that it was too calm. Too level, to the point of being rehearsed sounding. She nodded slowly, the little voice in the back of her head pointing out that it was just one more little fact towards remembering who he was, and why he seemed so familiar.

"Hermione, and thank you."

She added, glancing towards the glass of water. The droplets of condensation had begun to run down the sides of the glass, gathering in little pools on the tabletop. Her voice sounded strange to her ears, detached and polite- so much of the warmth that she had held as integral to her character missing. Just gone, as though it had been stripped away from the sound, leaving her with the voice of someone she barely recognized.

Tom nodded slightly, and looked as though he was about to say more, when the curtain that divided the two of them from the rest of the world, was pulled briskly out of the way. The effect was instantaneous, Hermione watched as a cold and impassive mask slid into place over his features, hardening them to a blank perfection. There was no sign of anything there, not even the tiny amount of interest that had seeped into his face, softening it, while they had talked- however briefly.

"What are you doing here?" The Matron asked, surprise written from ear to ear, a clean swath across her face. But Tom didn't answer, only giving the two women a very curt nod by way of goodbye. Turning swiftly, and letting his evenly measured steps carry him from the room, a little more quickly then he had on previous nights.

Hermione watched him go, until he disappeared around the Infirmary doors. A cold sense of loss, a hollow emptiness flared briefly in the pit of her stomach- pushing back towards the recesses of her mind before she would dwell on it any further. The room he had crossed was now only lit by the faded gray light that presages darkness, the beauty of the sunset hues vanished and gone. As though he had taken all that was lovely in that moment, and banished it with his departure.

To say that the Matron was surprised would be an understatement, but she was above all professional. A lively shrug to brush off the strangeness, before turning to Hermione with as bright a smile as she could muster.

"Good to see you awake, deary. Now let's take a look and see how you're healing up."

- ---

As always, a thanks to the people that review, you keep me writing with your subtle, and not so, hints!. I know I respond to all the signed reviews (I'd feel terrible not thanking you guys for your wonderful insights!) So I'm just going to quickly give you guys shouts by name )

Blindfaith

Annikacan

Svelte Rose

Speed of Darkness (hope you're doing better!!)

Flamelm

Nerys- I want the link to your story, so I can send you much reviews!

Ryn... you didn't sign the review, so Im going to add a reply to you right here (feel loved, lol!) Calculus is a very evil thing; don't let it get you down. To think that you use this as a bit of an escape is amazingly flattering, you're going to give me a complex ) and as for the "I cannot explain myself…" Yes, it is a quote from Alice in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll.


	11. Into the World

**Chapter 11**

It had been a long and eventful morning, full of the typical 'hurry up and wait' mentality that befell nearly any place of medicine. The light was bright through the high windows, and Hermione gazed out into the bright blue sky, dotted with little slivers of white clouds. From her vantage point at the far end of the room she could see out three of the narrow windows, her own little slices of the outside world.

The occasional leaf, colored russet or golden yellow floated past on a mild breeze; remind her that Time had not stood still while she had slumbered. Her fingers clutched reflexively at the white sheets that covered her weakened body, wishing that she could be outside in that sunlight. Anywhere but these walls of white screens that closed her in. She had asked that they be left open, her request denied. Apparently people suffering, healing, from Dark Magic needed their rest.

Hermione felt as though she had rested enough for a lifetime. It was like a prison, closing in on her in her solitude. She could distantly hear other student running up and down the halls, the entire world still treading on without her. But how was it possible? Her mind wrestled with the images of the fallen that danced like marionettes behind her eyelids.

The only thing that she had managed to piece together was the elusive identity of the man from her bedside the night before, Tom. Though she had lain awake most of the night pondering it (for it seemed far safer then thinking on any of the alternative whys, what's, and wheres…) the answer hand finally filtered into her foggy mind. The little boy she had seen in her dream, the one who had wanted so badly to be a doctor.

Save for the woman who had attended to her wounds was obviously magical, and entirely indisposed to answer any of her questions. Apparently she would be questioned later in the day, before it was determined weather or not she could be trusted. It was a very small consolation that the woman hadn't seemed pleased by the turn of events at all. Hermione had never taken well to being an invalid, even as a child she had pushed away the though that she was ill. There was simply too much in the world that needed to be done, and she couldn't waste the time lying around being sick.

But in this, she couldn't argue. She had seen first hand the delicate spider web of insidious blackness that laced from her hip and over her stomach. Though the wound from the Sectumsempra had been healed without a trace of a scar, this was the mark of a more vile nature. Hermione shivered, pulling the wool blanket a little higher over her body.

It didn't feel like her body anymore. Thinned by everything she had put it through, her muscles no longer answering her commands as they once had. She looked down at her hands; one still lay over her stomach, as though she could stop that blackness spreading by force of will alone. No, it was the body of someone who was not Hermione Granger; though the Mediwitch had assured her that the feeling was entirely normal.

All she wanted to do was run away.

A voice to the side of her bed dragged her attention away from the slowly moving clouds, visible through the window. Lunch had come and gone, though it mattered little when she had no appetite to keep down food. She had tried, but to her it all tasted like cardboard and ashes. In the end, she had pushed the soup away after barely choking back a few bites.

"Miss Hermione?" The voice repeated, as she turned her face to the vaguely familiar cadence. The face that looked back at her, made her suddenly ill- and glad that she hadn't managed to eat anything. The grey beard and shining blue eyes, the half-moon shaped spectacles that slid a bit down the long nose; so much younger, so much more alive. The twist in her stomach was a physical pain, her breath unable to pass the choking feeling in her throat.

The old Hermione screamed in the back of her mind, joy and relief that was almost palpable. Urging her to reach out to this face from her past, the one thing from this strangeness that she truly recognized. No matter that he was altered from her memory, he was real. The old Hermione plead and screeched with despair as it was pushed back into the box; begged for her to see reason, to have mercy; that nothing good could come of this cold shell. It mattered not, the ironclad defenses slipping into place with frightening speed.

She nodded slightly, her face as impassive as it ever was. No sign of the tormented voice remained to mar the perfection of this façade, self preservation the thriving and overruling emotion. The younger Dumbledore motioned towards the rickety chair still set beside the little hospital bed, as though to ask if he might sit down. Hermione shrugged apathetically, and he sat anyway.

"It's good to see you're awake. I hope you're as comfortable as possible, if you need anything, don't hesitate to ask." This younger Dumbledore said, eyes a strange blend of searching curiosity and the light hearted sparkle that had been so absent in the final days of his life. Hermione just nodded again not trusting herself entirely to speak; the voice of her own Humanity was still too loud in her mind.

He shifted a little, lifting up the small, red book that Tom had dropped onto the chair the night before. Raising a single grey, quizzical eyebrow, he set it on the bedside table before turning his attention back to the young woman that had been interred in this school- he had been sent to find out how exactly she had come to appear here; despite the fact that apparition was impossible on Hogwarts grounds. It would obviously be harder if she wasn't willing (or able, he supposed) to give him a conclusive answer.

"You can understand, I'm sure, why we would be fascinated to know why a young lady such as yourself would materialize in the middle of our Great Hall, suffering from quite the collection of nasty wounds. Apparition is impossible, so your appearance has been the source for rather a lot of rumors in the staff room. Would you like to explain it to me?" He asked kindly, folding his hands in his lap comfortably.

Hermione let out a little breath that she didn't realize she had been holding. Whatever happened, they were still going to listen to her side of the story before passing judgment. Of course, that brought up the troubling fact that she wasn't entirely sure what her side of the story was. _I'm sorry, but I don't have a clue._ Probably wouldn't go over very well.

A few moments passed as she turned the facts over in her mind, as fuzzy and indistinct as they were- they were really all she had. Lying would be far too complicated, and the truth a mystery even to her. Honesty then, to the best of her ability, she decided grimly. It wasn't so much the best option, as he lesser of the available evils.

"I don't even know where I am, or what day it is… I wish I could help you, but I don't even think I can help myself right now."

Hermione hated the way her voice cracked on the last syllable. An admission of weakness that she really couldn't afford. She fixed her gaze on the windows, staring out into the endless blue of the sky until she could feel her tension ebbing, and her breathing returning to its usual rhythm. The old Hermione would have been grateful that he had given her those minutes; the new one couldn't bring herself to care.

It was as though the apathy had worked its way into the marrow of her bones, spreading the numbness through every pore of her body until there was nothing left but the malaise. As though the misty Nothing had become a part of her, symbiotically linked to her like a leeching parasite.

"Well that much I can tell you. You are at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and it is the 15th of September, 1945. And a Friday, if it makes any difference."

A less composed person would have panicked. A less composed person would have not accepted this truth. A rational person, a sane and balanced person, would have cried or screamed or reacted in some way. Hermione just nodded, swallowing back the flickers of human worry that burned deep in her chest. Something had gone wrong, terribly, terribly wrong.

"I don't know how I got here."

"Do you have anyone we should contact? I'm sure your family must be very worried about you."

"No… I don't. I don't have anywhere else to go."

The realization hit her like a ton of bricks, leaving her pale as chalk and gripping the sheets tightly between her fingers. What would she do if they turned her out? Where would she go, in this time where she had yet to be born? These walls were the only thing keeping her safe, holding back the tidal waves of memory and while she was here, she could pretend that nothing was wrong.

"Don't worry about that for now; we won't let anything happen, my dear." Dumbledore said with a kindly smile, patting her clenched hands gingerly. Merlin only knew who she was, but he was no cruel monster to throw her out to the mercies. _No_, he decided at that moment, _there must be something we can do._

Tom made his way down the hallways, blocking from his mind any second thoughts and doubts about what he was doing. Dinner had been a rushed affair, under the watchful gaze of Abraxas Malfoy and his goons. They had lost their favorite whipping boy, and it seemed that they were going o have to take a more vested interest in order to get him back under their thumb.

Disgust twisted his stomach, that they could even think for one moment that he was anything less then their superior. No rank would ever keep them from their sport, as Tom curled his nails roughly into the centre of his palms. His worn book bag hitched against the Head Boy pin attached to his robes, thumped once heavily against his knee as he walked.

Not that he felt he needed a better excuse to visit the Infirmary, the woman had his book, and he intended to retrieve it before it got misplaced or swept away by some other student. The hallway was silent as he drew nearer to the double doors, nobody here for the night except the former Snow White. Tom shook his head to dispel the thought- it didn't matter, he would get his book, and never have to bother with her again.

She was alive, and so he had gotten an answer to his curiosity. Experiment done, and there was nothing left to do but tie up loose ends.

What he didn't expect to find when he entered the dimly lit room, was to find Hermione sitting propped up in bed, the little book resting open against her knees. Her face was relaxed, a little smile playing about her pale lips as she read the familiar phrases and passages. Tom stood in the doorway, still as a statue, just watching.

_Read me the part about the Tweedles again? _Came a little voice, echoing through his memory. He shuddered, clasping his hands tight to his side. His nails leaving little crescent moon shapes in the flesh of his palm, pain enough to drive the unwanted memory back to its rightful and forgotten place. Stepping forward through the doors, a little too quickly across the floor, as if to escape his own mind.

Hermione looked up as he drew nearer, the gently muffled footsteps pulling her away from the chapter she was reading. She noticed that he seemed a little flushed tonight, thought it could have been nothing more then the play of the evening light on his fair skin. Closing the cover carefully, she raised her hand in a silent hello.

"Good evening… I just came to collect my book." He said abruptly, pulling up short beside the no longer surrounded bed. The curtains would be pulled back at lights-out, though for the moment it seemed the Mediwitch had deemed her well enough to have some real light.

"Oh, of course." She said after a pause, looking down at the little red book in her lap. Her thumb moved over the slightly raised title, as a blind person reading the tiny patterns of Braille. It had been so familiar, reading the story was like being a little girl again. Home where things were safe and uncomplicated… Not half a century before she was even born, with almost no idea how she had gotten there.

A slight twist of guilt bothered Tom, as he stood there watching her glance down at the book. For a moment, she looked so small and lost, and for whatever reason he didn't want to think about right now, Tom Riddle didn't want her to feel that way. Not when it was such a simple thing for him to just leave the book with her. _A child's tale when you have much more important things you should be focused on._

"No, keep it… I should be studying anyway." He said after a moment. It wasn't as gracious as it could have been, but it was a genuine offer for all it lacked in grace. A sardonic little voice pointed out that he was probably losing his touch. Or perhaps it was just something about this stranger that got under his skin. He deemed in unimportant, and pushed it aside.

"Oh no, it's yours- go ahead." She protested, lifting the book towards him.

"Really, I should be working. It's nothing, you keep it."

"I… What are you studying?" Hermione asked, letting her hand fall limply back to the bedclothes. It ached for her to be so close to the classrooms, that just down the hallway people were learning. And here she was, laid up like some sort of invalid. There was no part of her that was strong enough to lock away her desire to learn, it was more integral then her hope. It could not be denied, least of all by her.

As Tom gingerly took the seat by the bedside, he couldn't help but let a wry little smirk play around his mouth. It wasn't a particularly warm expression, but Hermione thought it suited him better then the stoic solemnity she had seen before now. His movements were enviably graceful, as though he was in perfect control of himself at all times.

Indeed, his practiced front was so effective that she honestly doubted weather or not the nerves she thought she had glimpsed the night before were real. That was all pushed to the back, as he folded his hands loosely in his lap and looked down at her. He didn't seem entirely at ease, but was making the best of it.

"We're working on counter spells, actually…"

- ---

Hey guys! Thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapters, and here is a bit of actual interaction ) and just for the record, there is a sequel planned for when this is done, if people are still interested!

Ryn, blindfaith, Lilith and Nerys.

Wow guys, only 4 reviews for last chapter… yikes.


	12. Freedom and Discovery

_Jukebox Plays- just about any soft Gaelic music_

**Chapter 12**

"I don't know how you intend to heal, sitting in the Infirmary staring out the window."

Tom said, looking over at the curly haired young woman lying in the bed beside his chair. It had been almost a week since Hermione had woken from her sleep, almost a week of Tom's nightly visits.

She could always hear the students leaving the Great Hall, voices raised, and the pattering of hundreds of feet on the dense stone. Like a muted thunder, or a herd of elephants capering through the savannah. Regular as clockwork, just as the sun was beginning to set below the window frames, he would sit down beside her. They almost never spoke; it was like an unwritten rule. Neither one had anything to say, nor the faintest idea of how to start a conversation.

And so they would sit there in the quiet, the scratching of his quill against parchment as he did his homework. The whisper of pages, as she read through whatever textbook he wasn't using. But for all that, it was a comfortable silence. Lost in their own thoughts, both knowing that if they broke the peace- then they would have to examine their own motivations.

Why he came to her each night, and why she spent most of the day waiting for him to arrive. A constant around which they fixed their waking hours, and if neither were entirely and wholly happy with the situation- nor were they unhappy enough to risk changing it. Because while they were together, they could focus on the present- casting away their separate worries for the midnight hours, when sleep would refuse to come nearer then a glimpse.

But today was a little different, no shadowed by the secret hues of night, the purples and blues that usually painted the walls of their meetings. For today was Saturday, and the morning of the first Hogsmeade visit of the year. The hallways had been a bustle of chaotic energy all morning, as students hurried about, setting everything in place for the day. It had died down since then, the school falling into an almost reverent hush. The few people left in the school made footsteps that echoed in the empty space, so much louder then they usually would have been.

From her vantage point, Hermione could look out into the beautiful blue sky. She had heard the trilling voices exclaiming what a wonderfully warm autumn day it was, and for a moment hated them their freedom. His calm, measured voice pulled her from her reverie, as she looked over at the young man beside her.

His face was still tilted towards his Potions text, though his eyes gazed up at her with an unreadable expression in their grey depths. In another person, it might almost have been curiosity, or teasing- but in him they were altered, like as lemon is to lemonade. More concentrated and intense; and entirely lacking in the artificial sweetness that most people poured on so thick.

She sighed, shrugging her too-thin shoulders slightly. Hermione couldn't explain why she wasn't getting better faster. Why for all the strengthening potions and Dreamless sleep, she was forever fatigued. Madam McAllister promised and reassured her that it was only her body fighting off the lingering effects of Dark Magic. Hermione could only hope, in her own apathetic way, that the older woman was telling the truth. There was so much she could do, needed to do, that she simply couldn't do from this bed.

"I don't know. If you're so bright, then why haven't you come up with the solution?"

She said after a pause, closing the cover of the Transfiguration text that she hadn't been reading anyway. He mimicked her action, setting down the book he had been holding on the bedside table. A faint smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, in something that could almost be called a smirk. If only it reached his eyes, she supposed he would look quite handsome. Of perhaps if she were shallow enough not to bother looking for slight mistakes in his mask.

"Perhaps I have. I suppose it all depends on weather or not you plan to take my excellent advice."

Hermione waved a hand negligently, unable to resist the lure of this little challenge. For all the time they had spent silently together, she had come accustomed to his presence. It wasn't trust- no, it had a long way to go before it could be called that- but it was enough that deep down, at the place where conscious though and unconscious meet, that she almost wanted it to be.

"Alright then, Dr. Tom, what is your expert opinion?"

"I don't think you should lie here any longer."

He said, rising from the uncomfortable folding chair with his usual economy of movement. It wasn't planned; when he had entered the room this morning he had no intentions of changing the status quo of their…Whatever it was they were. Neither one had come up with a satisfactory designation, and so had none. He was Tom, and she was Hermione, and there were no more complications then that.

Hermione pushed a stray toast-colored curl away from her face, watching with mild interest as he lightly pushed a wheeled chair from some part of the room hidden by the half-closed screens around her bed. It was brass and worn leather and wood, polished and preserved as everything of value in the Wizarding world. The wheels spun smoothly and silently against the stone floor, making only slightly bump noises as it crossed from one stone to the next.

"Your carriage awaits… Unless you'd rather sit here?" Tom deadpanned, raising an eyebrow slightly. The second unwritten rule (the first having now been broken quite nicely,) was that at no point, for any reason, did the two of them touch. It was too personal, too invasive. And so they kept their distance, as he held the chair still and steady with his free hand.

She didn't bother to dignify that with a response, carefully, slowly sliding down from the bed that had become both her support and her prison. Unused muscles protested the movement, as her body trembled slightly. It was easier this way, as she settled herself into the well worn seat. He never offered to help, and nor would she have accepted it. Tom, who couldn't the cowardly weakness in the people he saw- couldn't help but be quietly pleased that she had the pride to struggle through it.

Looking back on it, he was never quite able to explain why he said what he did next. It was one of those moments, the rare times when the real Tom spoke through the layers of deception. Smothered as that little voice was beneath the avarice and envy, doing what was best for _him_- and not just his ideals.

"I know a nice place, if you'd let me?" He asked, resting on hand lightly on the back of the chair to illustrate his meaning.

Hermione was never quite certain what possessed her to agree, she who hated surprises even before her life was destroyed by the war. Only that it didn't seem important where she went, as long as it was out in that beautiful fresh air, and away from the stuffy air of the Infirmary. That he had had plenty of opportunity to hurt her before she had woken, and never caused her harm. Removing her hands from the wheels slowly, relinquishing that tiny bit of control, and folding her hands carefully in her lap.

Hogwarts in the fall was even more lovely then she remembered. The trees seemed specially laid out in their best for her, clothed in cloth-of-gold and deep russet and shades of orange that seemed plucked from the heart of a flame. Caught between air and earth, clear blue and green that made for the perfect frame.

The air smelled of wood smoke and rich, loamy soil. Hermione breathed deeply, closing her eyes as she cleared the scent of the Infirmary out of her body. It was chilly, used as she was to the warmth of the indoors- but it felt fresh and vibrant against her skin. Temporary goose bumps were a small price to pay for this feeling of delicious freedom.

Tom shook his head slightly at the expression on her face. The lawns here were deserted, as he made their way closer towards the arm dark lake that faced away from the main grounds. He couldn't help but notice the way the sunlight brought out shades of copper in her hair, and how such a small thing as this light made her look so very much healthier. And at that moment he didn't care much that it was unplanned, or that he didn't know why he had invited her out- he was only glad that he had.

He hadn't been here since the middle of his fifth year, since that horribly unplanned accident. He had come here to think before that, a place where he could be away from the Machiavellian machinations of the rest of his housemates. There was a large tree near the lake, with low braches and thick roots that make a perfect place to sit. It was far enough away that students never really came out here, and to Tom, it was the little piece of the school that was truly his own.

Someone a long time ago had carved KH+CB into the trunk, and he had wondered idly as a child, weather or not that love had proved as enduring as the letters they had carved. Tom was never quite sure if he hoped it had, or hoped it hadn't. The leaves on this, his, tree had turned the color of claret or red wine, the sun shining through them, luminous and glowing. A halo of rosy radiance that fell over Hermione's pale skin like a forged copy of what she must have looked like, before. Before what, was the question that continually pricked his mind.

A lightly breeze blew through the trees, making the dry leaves rattle faintly. Brushing errant strands of her hair to tickle the back of his hand. _No touching._ His inner monologue reminded sharply, but since she didn't know, he couldn't resist a moment's hesitation. Uncomplicated human contact.

"Thank you, Tom… It really is so wonderful here." She said, glancing over her shoulder to give him a small smile. Beneath this light he looked so thoughtful, as though his marble features had been softened. A trick of the illumination, she was sure, but almost entrancing to watch the shift.

As he looked down at her, his mouth quirked a bit. An awkward little smile that almost made her chest hurt. It was so hesitant, as though he had been worried about her reaction. The vein of insecurity that ran so close to his heart, protected there where nobody would ever find it. A place where nobody before had ever thought to look. And perhaps it was still an illusion of the burnished light, but those fathomless grey eyes didn't look so steely. As though there was a color there, only she couldn't quite make it out.

" 'Allo there!" Came a familiar voice, shattering the moment into a thousand shards of maybes. Tom looked up, the words he had been forming, dying silent on his lips. Coming around from the direct of the Forbidden Forest came a large man, to which 'large' was a woeful understatement.

His hair was a disarrayed mess of coarse waves, dotted with colored leaves that had drifted down from the trees overhead. His body was warded from the faint chill by an enormous moss green sweater, frayed and marked with grass stains and soil. He carried about him the scent of wood smoke, his voice deep and cheerful.

The scorching lump of tears that welled up in her throat left Hermione unable to speak, mutely staring at a much younger version of the man she would later claim as a dear, dear friend. Healthy and hale, and so many tears removed from the blanched and bloodless cadaver he had been, the last time she had laid eyes on him. And more then anything she had seen, more then anything she had heard- the convinced her that it was all true. That something had happened to drag her out of her own time, and into this one.

"Hagrid… Hello" was Tom's artificially polite response. Only the rigid tension in his hand gave her any indication that he was not entirely calm. And had she been in any state to notice that, she might have had some warning before the next shell was dropped on her unsteady world.

"So I hear you made Head Boy, all that good work for the school'n all, I expect. Still, no hard feelings, right? I 'spose you was only doin' what you felt was best. But who's this 'ere young lady?" He said, grinning in a friendly way at Hermione though what was eventually going to be a beard.

"H-Hermione..." she managed to choke out, earning her a sideways glance from Tom. He relaxed his grip on the back of her chair instinctively, calming the annoyed cracks he could feel spider webbing across his façade. Hagrid had been helpful, and more then helpful in his 5th year- not that he had meant to be, though. The entire situation had been sticky at best, and Dumbledore had never quite looked at him the same way after that.

"Ah well Miss Hermione, you'll be in no better hands. I can think of half a dozen girls who would love to have the undivided attention of Tom Riddle! Quite the catch, they seems to think." Hagrid laughed deep in his chest, waving a goodbye as he kept on his way through the grounds towards the main section of the school.

Hermione stopped short, her mind struggling painfully to fit the pieces together. The sudden appearance of her old friend had thrown a spanner into the works, cluttering up her orderly mind with tiny, extra bits of memory and emotion. Indeed, had he not left when he did, she may have missed out on it entirely. Her stomach turned over, clinging to itself in sickening knots. She could hear the blood pulsing in her ears, as her hands gripped the arms of the chair, leaving tiny, crescent shaped marks on the underside, where nobody could see.

_It's not possible. No. Not him, anyone but him!_

Her mind buckled, freezing in place as she desperately tried to shove all of the feeling into the back of her mind. Away from where he could see, away from where she would have to feel the pain of unknowing betrayal. Her words were strained, catching sharply against her throat as she tried to force them into existence. All she wanted at that moment, to hide within the safety of somewhere, anywhere - but no such sanctuary to be found.

"I… I want to go back now. I'm tired."

He didn't say a word as he helped push her back to the Infirmary. The only thought that occupied the mind of the young man was '_What did I do wrong?'_ And indeed, as was the pattern with so many things since she had fallen into his sphere- the answer was nothing but a blank.

- ---

I am so proud of this chapter! grins Thanks to everyone who review, you guys really inspire so much of why I write. 70 reviews, I can't believe it!

Lilith Kayden

Svelte Rose

Killtheenviousmoon

Hpfanf

Annikacan

Rachhulk

Speed of Darkness

Ryn

Blindfaith

Pink (because Voldie's Pink Teddy is a pain to type every time )

And my dear Nerys - you people should go read her fic 'Masters of Manipulation' ( and review it, because it is really, really amazing! If you want a wonderfully nasty Tom, then this is exactly what the doctor ordered.


	13. Unexpected Encounters

_Jukebox Plays- Bonny Portmore, by Loreena McKennitt_

**Chapter 13**

It was getting darker earlier now, the leaves that brushed across the high windows were turning more brown then the red and gold she had found so lovely, such a short time ago. Hermione lay on the narrow hospital issue cot, her body curled on its side. The view of the blank folds of the white screen were a far cry from the stars beginning to pick their way out of the darkening sky; but she found she had no stomach for their beauty tonight. She clutched her pillow close to her chest, her head resting against her arm and the trailing edge of the cushion.

Madam McAllister had left the lights in the Infirmary out, protesting that her young patient needed more rest. And as the only illumination from the windows faded into the grays of twilight, and the black of oncoming night, so to did she feel her self fall deeper into the quiet, all encompassing sorrow that had been steadily creeping in on her, from the moment she had awoken from her long sleep.

The pillowcase was rough, never meant for this kind of long use. How long has she been awake now? Nearly a week… The time before that mattered less then nothing at all, in this place out of time, where her waking moments were spent confined to this strange-yet-familiar place, like the echo of a memory she couldn't quite place. Or, in the case of Hermione, didn't want to place. She could hear the footsteps outside in the corridor, the babbling of students making their way around the castle in the last hour, maybe two, because they would be called in for curfew. The world kept spinning, and people continued to live, oblivious to the young woman that languished away in waiting.

Hermione blinked hard, scrubbing her free sleeve over her eyes like a child would. Her chest throbbed with the burning sobs she held back, unable to allow herself that one, small weakness. In this uncertain place there was no room for her grief, and so it was placed in the back of her mind, out of sight. Away with the memories of her friends, and with hope and with joy, away with all the things that had made Hermione herself. But even this new Hermione was not cruel by nature, she and it was this saving grace element which caused her a new pain now.

For the last two nights, she had heard Tom come to the door. And twice now he had been turned away without so much a step over the threshold. His pride would not allow him to beg or plead, but in his quietly measured arguments, Hermione could close her eyes and barely make out the shadows of hurt and confusion he hid so well. And twice how after he had left, she wondered if he was aware of the feelings himself, or were they hidden away so much like her own.

It was so much easier to view things in the black and white, to know what he would become, and hate him for it. To despite with every inch of marrow in the bones, the pain he would cause innocent people. The evil that was surely already turning his human heart to a pulsing mass of black. That it was him, and him alone that had set the wheels in motion that had sent her here to this place. His loyal followers laid out with the side of the light, both warring factions the same in death.

Hermione clutched at the pillow, her fingers digging sharply into the sparse padding inside the case. For all she had tried, there was still one element of her humanity that clung on with a tenacity that she could never have believed possible. Long after the other emotions had given up, retreated back to the place she assigned them- her Loneliness held on. Through the long quiet days in her solitude here, to the longer, more silent nights.

He had been her only comfort, his presence offering the sort of stable calmness that she so craved. A time away from her own confused thoughts, as he asked nothing. Nothing but what he gave, returned to him. Someone to sit quietly with, a human presence that understood that they had long since forgotten the art of little pleasantries- reduced to their core elements, with no idea how to work themselves back to the whole. And neither sure if they wanted to or not.

These thoughts, so very different that they had become the same again, twisted around in her mind like a mental double helix. And as it made up the basis for every mortal man and woman, so did this make up the solid facts to her current dilemma. Hermione knew that she couldn't help him, that perhaps as she had been, she would have a chance. But this new Hermione remembered nothing of the path she would need to tread to pull him away from the evil that would eventually consume him.

It was too big, too much for her. So many questions and no answers, the temptation to hide away behind those heavy, stable doors was too overwhelming to be fought. And as she succumbed to the undertow, Hermione knew that she was abandoning everything that had placed her in her house. That she had fallen so far from the morals of Gryffindor that she could never truly reclaim them

And with that knowledge fell away another little piece of self. Another of the little blocks of truth that kept her anchored to who she was. Melting away like a sandcastle in the rain, her belief in who she was.

Tom could feel his even mood beginning to slither away from his ironclad control. It was an hour until curfew, and the confusion in the cluttered hallways was beginning to thin out as students made their dawdling way back to their Common Rooms. This would be the third, and last time he put his pride aside to try and gain admission into the Infirmary. The first night he had been confused, with no idea of what he might have done wrong to disturb her so much. The image of the soul deep horror that had flashed through her eyes, but for the barest of seconds, before she had asked him to return her to her room.

He had wracked his mind, recalling every detail that he could have possibly have missed- only to come up empty handed. Tom had lain awake that night, his few stolen moments of sleep disrupted by half formed and ethereal images; ones that slipped away the harder he tried to remember them when he woke.

The second night he had moved through confusion, the lack of sleep and frustration forcing themselves through the minute cracks in the mask he had though he had perfected. At being summarily turned away, he was chagrined to remember returning to his room to complete his homework.

At the sight of the black ink dripping heavily down the bare grey stones, after the inkwell had been thrown against the wall in a fit of troubled pique. It was at that moment he realized how far this little enigmatic woman had worked herself under his armor. The sight and mystery of her inching beneath the plates of distain and chilly calm- and he had sworn that he would banish her from his mind. That never again would he walk the path from his dorm to the Infirmary, and quit the place where he had found some measure of acceptance. Where in the last week, had become his odd little haven away from the Head Girl's loud music, and Libya's sideways glances.

And yet here he was again, despite his protests to the contrary. One more night, and a final attempt to gain the answers only she could provide for him. His resolve had held for the night before, granting him a measure of the undisturbed rest he so badly needed. Equilibrium restored, as he made his way through twisting and winding corridors, down the stairs that moved of their own volition. If this didn't work, then he would find a way to clear her from his mind. A memory charm, perhaps; as it was becoming pathetically evident that his own willpower (which had never before met it's match) would not be up to the task.

He shuddered at the image of himself banging on the Infirmary doors, like some modern Arthur Dimmesdale from the "Scarlett Letter". She would not be his Hester Prynne, and drag him into the depths of the darkness he concealed so well from himself. Pulling him wholly and utterly into the madness that would make him question everything he had built for himself, and the plans he had made. The very notion was ridiculous, and he shoved it away from himself as he made his way around the last corner. No, he would remain calm, despite the outcome of this fool's errand.

"Off to visit your little girlfriend, Riddle?" He heard from behind him, just as he was about to push open one of the double doors. The voice was a well-cultured sneer, supreme in it's arrogance. Followed by similar laughter, Tom had no doubts who had followed him to this place. No light issued from inside the room, his mind working over the facts and details he had to work with. Obviously he would receive no quarter from the absent Infirmary Matron, leaving him with only his own skills for his defense.

Tom turned gracefully on his heel, his eyes an impassive, unreadable shade of gray. It was three men that met his gaze, just as he had suspected. The two bookends were highborn purebloods, dark haired and aristocratic looking. Avery and Lestrange then, the green and silver stripes of their Slytherin ties catching the little light that shone down the hallway from the torches set into the walls. The third was the one who had spoken, his coiffed platinum hair and arrogant lift of his chin labeling him as none other then Abraxas Malfoy. Everything about him screaming opulence and money, a combination that most of the girls in their house had fallen to at one time or another.

"What is it, someone with tainted blood like yours can't even find a woman among the healthy? Have to prey on those that have one foot in the grave, isn't that it? Or maybe you like them like that, right Riddle? Weak and helpless so they don't have any fight in them to resist your… advances" He said with a crude leer, once it became obvious that Tom had no interest in rising to his jibes.

Tom's hands twitched, checking to make sure his wand was still loose in his sleeve. The insinuation that he would force himself on her, it turned his stomach in a way he hadn't expected, or encountered before. It was an unpleasant sensation, something akin to the gripping sensation before you are violently ill. He had the distinct impression that that little barb would stick for a while.

"Don't be a fool, Malfoy. Chattering on about something you couldn't begin to understand." He issued calmly, his expression showing nothing of what he was thinking. It was with a slight fragment of malicious delight that he watched Malfoy's perfectly pale skin turn a blotchy red color; an unattractive rage turning his eyes small and rat-like.

"What? Did I strike a nerve, Riddle? Bet those old beds must make a real racket at she tries to struggle out from under you. You'll have to tell me how you do it without getting caught by old McAllister. So tell me, is she any good?"

There was something in the way that he said that, that made Tom feel filthy. As though he had been sluiced with tar, the oily way that Malfoy's words fell around him. It was a new line of insults, ones he had never encountered from the pureblood heir before. And all the while, his goons chuckled to themselves. A tiny movement out of the corner of his eye attracted his attention, as Tom registered that Malfoy had indeed drawn his wand. A flick of his wrist, and he felt the cool wood slide into his palm with a familiar sense of security.

"One movement, and I'll duel you myself." Came a voice from the doorway. It wasn't strong, in fact it rasped against the last word sharply. But nor was it weak, infused with a vein of steel that fortified the simple sentence into something venomous and uncompromising.

All four young men turned their head to the door, taking in vision of the woman that stood there. Framed by the darkness of the room beyond, her hair was a halo of wild curls that were the color of chocolate in the dim light. Her leaned heavily against the doorframe, her anemically thin form seeming to draw strength from the support. In her plain white nightgown, her wand drawn levelly at them, Hermione looked every bit the force to be reckoned with. The expression in her eyes leaving no doubt that she was much, much stronger then she appeared.

"What's this, need help from-"

"Avis Oppugno." Her voice snapped, cutting off Malfoy in mid sentence. In a little less then a heartbeat, a flock of bright yellow canaries flew from the end of her outstretched wand, pecking and swooping down on the pureblood trio. Their sharp beaks drew droplets of blood, sending the boys down the corridors as fast as their feet would carry them. Feathers and down drifted slowly to the floor in their wake, as the attacking little yellow birds took up the pursuit.

The corner of Tom's mouth turned up in an almost smile as he looked at Hermione. The image of the arrogant trio being chased through the halls by a flock of savage songbirds struck him as oddly funny. Hermione smiled back a little, looking so much paler then she should have. But her eyes had a shine in them he hadn't seen before, just a slight bit of life that glittered through the unending nothing he had seen there before.

He quelled his first instinct, a defensive refusal that he hadn't needed help. Some small, empathetic part of his mind recognized that it would cause more harm then good. His original reasons for coming here tonight had not changed, but her actions had left him, if anything, more confused then before.

"Thank you." He offered finally, and she nodded silently in return. Tom knew it wouldn't be tonight he got his answers, reconciling himself to trying again tomorrow. Not bothering to question why that decision should make him feel lighter, instead of annoyed. He did not offer to help her, as she turned back into the Infirmary. Though her steps were slow and shaky- she would not appreciate his pity. And for whatever it may truthfully be, she would see it as charity.

"Goodnight, Tom." She said as she disappeared into the depths of the darkness. They both knew something had changed, though neither knew exactly how.

- ---

Thanks again to everyone who review the previous chapter! And I'm sorry on the delay for this one, but real life has been throwing a bit of a spanner in the works lately, and I haven't had much time to write at all! So I' m so sorry, and thanks for being so patient.

Nerys

Ivory

Svelte Rose

Sachita

Ryn

Stevie K

Rachhulk

Enviousmoon

Blindfaith (good luck with the rehersals!!)

Speed of Darkness

Annikacan

Much cookies for all of you!


	14. Burning and Beginnings

**Chapter 14**

The next day, Albus Dumbledore came to see her again.

Is was sometime shortly after breakfast, the tray of nibbled toast and jam already removed from her bedside. Through the windows, Hermione could see the grey clouds that were beginning to collect on the far horizon. It was one of those days that she was grateful to be snug indoors, away from the damp, chilly breeze. A tiny thread of sympathy spun through her mind, for the students trekking out to Care of Magical Creatures, or the Herbology greenhouses.

Her eyes felt gritty, as she rubbed them with the back of her hand. Sleep had been long in coming the night before, as she mulled over everything that had happened. She had lain awake until the first touches of dawn light had filled the room, trying to find an explanation for her actions. A simple way to make sense of why she had wanted to him him.

Tom Riddle, the soon to be killer of hundreds, if not thousands of people. The old, forgiving Hermione argued that he hadn't done these things yet. The logical part reminded that he was no innocent. That he hadn't been innocent from the first time he had killed, and had written his own guilt more firmly with the second.

It was the small, long silenced voice in the back of her mind that chose this moment to step foreward. The bearer of the harsh truth that he was the closest thing she had to a friend here- and the idea of spending the rest of her tomorrows alone was almost more then she could bear. Already the days seemed to stretch on forever, as lonely and bare as she had ever known.

Hours and hours spent fending off memories she couldn't bring herself to face. How many times in the last week had she read something, only to remind herself to tell Harry and Ron when she saw them next? The gutted, hollow feeling when she realized that not only were they gone, but that they had yet to even be born. And late at night, when she would lie awake and pretend that she was home. That in the morning she would wake up, and all of this would just be a terrible nightmare.

Dawn always came with the harsh light of truth, shattering her careful illusions into shards so tiny that she had no hope of putting them bak together again. Those moments were the worst, the despair a burning, tangible thing that she could feel in every inch of her body.

The weak tea in the little china cup had long since turned cold when the Professor stepped into the Infirmary. The Headmaster had given him a strict ultimatum, and one he was forced to adhere to. Either the girl was moved to St Mungo's where she would get more comprehensive medical treatement- or she was sorted into a House, and enrolled to take classes. It had been a week, and in Dippet's eyes, it was a week too long for some strange girl to take up residence in his school.

It was with great relief that Hermione seemed to be doing better then the last time he saw her. Though still disturbingly pale and wan looking, she had lost the cadaverous thinness that had been so apparent on his last visit. Dark magic was so very touch and go, and Albus honestly wondered if she would ever be wholly rid of the touch of the black arts. Madam McAllister had come to him the first night, explaining that the curse was like nothing she had seen before.

Resistant to all forms of healing magic, leaving behind the telltale, delicate black, lace-like pattern of dark magic scarring. They could only hope that in time her body would cleanse itself of the taint. She was a mystery, this girl with no family and no history, appearing in a place she could not have apparated to. Practically swathed in dark magic, and bleeding profusely from a stomach wound. Perhaps, he had wondered in the days before she awoke- it would have been kinder to turn a blind eye, and let her pass on quietly.

"Hermione, good morning." He said, pulling out the chair at the bedside. The young woman didn't smile, but she did nod, her face schooled into something both pleasant and impassive.

"Professor. What brings you here?" She turned to her side to face him, her head propped up on one hand. He supposed he couldn't blame her for cutting right to the facts. Albus pushed his half moon glasses up his nose and settling them securely on the bridge, before he began his piece.

"Madam McAllister has told me how much progress you've made, and it has been decided by the Headmaster that you should be offered the chance to take classes here. If you like, we could probably have you sorted into a house, and settled in by dinnertime tonight." He said smiling. But Hermione had spent too long reading faces, and in her mental state, her mind was clear to pick up the little details most people would have missed.

"And if I don't?" she said after a heartbeat. Dumbledore looked at her carefully, judging the best coarse of action. Honestly seemed to be the only, and the best option- there were very few ways to say 'we would send you away, and leave you alone.'

"If you do not feel up to it, then the Headmaster has decided to have you moved to St Mungo's, where you can receive more through medical treatment."

She nodded, not looking one bit surprised at the news. It wasn't perfect, it wasn't even really all that good- but he was offering her the chance to rejoin the human race, in whatever capacity she could. It was most likely the only opportunity she would get, unless she opted to wait through St Mungo's, and hope for the best.

"I'll take the first, sir." Hermione said at last.

…

The Headmaster's office was not how she remembered in. In her time, it was full of tiny spinning silver instruments. Delicate things with little arms and wheels and dials, but what purpose they served, she never knew. A little crystal dish of lemon candies sat on the edge of a desk, so cluttered by papers and things that you couldn't even see the wood underneath it. A fire burned always burned in the hearth, and it has always seemed a safe place. A place where all the wrongs of the world had a solution.

Even later, when the hard realities had come crashing down around them- it had still seemed a safe place. Filled to the brim with memories of better times, when justice and truth still had a place in the Wizarding world.

But as she entered now, Hermione resisted the urge to recoil from this sterile and blank office. The familiar, sturdy desk was neatly ordered with little stacks of papers; all topped with matching, cube shaped paperweights. The hearth was cold and swept clean of ashes, and even the portraits of the previous Headmasters seemed dimmed and diminished in their frames.

This was the office of a man that adhered to order and organization as more then a religion, and more then a lifestyle. It was the office of a man who used these traits to define his own existance.

The man himself was wholly unremarkable. Of average height and build, his grey hair was parted carefully down the middle, and trimmed to exactly the same length all the way around. His robes were a dark, professional navy blue, and the cut was so generic that they had nothing to recommend them. His voice was a balanced monotone as he greeted her stiffly, and passed over the ancient hat to Professor Dumbledore.

Still clothed in her white hospital nightgown, Hermione took the proffered seat in front of the desk. She couldn't help but feel like she did on her first day of school here, nervously awaiting the decision of the Sorting Hat. The weight was almost familiar, the fabric worn soft by hundreds of years of care. It was still big on her, slipping down over her curls- though it no longer threatened to totally block out her vision by covering her eyes.

_Miss Granger… You have a great deal locked away in here, a true challenge to place. Gryffindor before, I see- but not now. The fight is not gone from you, but it is not the same as it was when you were a child. You have changed a great deal, oh yes.._

_Ravenclaw or Slytherin then, I think would suit you best. You are both determined, and quick witted, perhaps the house of Salazar would suit you best… Ah, but you have no stomach for intrigue anymore. Seen enough of it, have you? Mmhmm, it's all locked away in here, and I can see it all._

_You want to hide away, and despise yourself for what you see as cowardice. Miss Granger, you are no coward. Nor a fool to rush at the world head first anymore- hit the glass ceiling a time or two, I see? Yes… Your ambition does not drive you as it once did, and I wager you will see both sides of the coin before you settle into this new life._

_Slytherin or Ravenclaw, Miss Granger? In Slytherin you have a friend, as well as those who would harm you. In Ravenclaw, nothing but a blank. Even those sorted there as children sometimes find the academic lifestyle too much of a strain- but your mind is up for the challenge._

_Alright then, I suppose you are best in—__**Ravenclaw!**_

The voice cut through the quiet room, both older men waiting patiently while the Hat mulled over this young girl. Older students always took longer to place, though rarely so long as it had taken with Hermione.

Robes and supplies were covered by a fund set aside for students who did not have the means to pay for such things themselves. It was a practice that went back as far as anyone could remember, back to the time of the Founder's, some believed. Tragedies should not stand in the way of the rest of your life, people must be given a way to keep moving foreward.

….

Tom made his way up the staircase to the Infirmary. It had been an entire day of pouring over her actions, and he had reached his wits end. One moment she was asking him to leave. Having the Matron turn him away at the door, no less. And the next, stepping into 'rescue' him from the uppercrust, pureblooded snobs, lead by Abraxas Malfoy. Since that fateful Saturday afternoon he had been left in wait; patiently, he believed, as it was now approaching the evening hours on Tuesday.

This woman had made him doubt and question his actions, even his very thoughts- and he would stand for it no longer. He was Tom Riddle, and he would be great, a powerful; she was only yet another block in the path towards his destiny. His fine, artistic hands clenched and relaxed, as he pushed open the Infirmary doors.

Hermione stood there, the dark student's robes turning her pale skin the color of cold milk. The early evening light slanted through the windows behind her, casting a nimbus of golden light around her, sparkling with tiny motes of dust that danced through the air with every movement.

His eyes trailed over her slowly, seeing her for the first time as a woman his own age, rather then a beautiful thing that was too fragile to be out in the world. His heart lurched painfully against his ribcage, tolling with every beat the truth he had tried to deny. That one day she would grow strong enough to leave this room.

She would go out, and make friends of her own. Begin a life separate from the world they had spun together in their silences here. No more nights would they sit here, reading until it became too dark to clearly see the text against the page. The suffocation sensation of loss nearly bowled him over- snapping him from the tidal wave of Nevermore that was threatening to pull him under.

"What are you doing?" He questioned, closing the door behind him out of habit. The expression on his face was calm, save for the maelstrom of violent emotions that crashed and warred behind those deep grey eyes.

Hermione looked up at him, shock etched clearly across her features. Blinking away the surprise, she shrugged slightly, setting the dust motes to swirling around her sleeves, radiating outwards from her body in the tiny eddies of displaced air.

"I was just-" She began calmly, but his voice slashed across hers, interrupting whatever it was she was going to say. He didn't want an explanation, didn't want to hear that she was moving on with her life. He made his way farther across the room as his tirade gained force.

"What is wrong with you? You know you can't do this! You're not nearly strong enough- don't be foolish."

Hermione bit back the urge to wince at the fury and frustration that laced Tom's usually calm voice. Like pouring bitters into a sweet cordial, vinegar into a rich red wine. It was wrong, and she refused to avert her eyes and back away from it. Finally out of the hospital whites, she felt more herself then she had since she had wokn here, in this strange place.

"What are you talking about? I'll be fine as long as I'm careful!" She shot back, stepping towards him. Tom matched her step with his longer legs, bringing them no more then an arm's distance apart. Hermione could see the bright almost-color flashing in his eyes, shining in the dim like like brilliant twin candles.

"What do you know? It was dark magic that cursed you!"

"I know more then you could even imagine, Tom Riddle!" Hermione hissed, a searing wave of fury burning through the layers of apathy that had been building up around her. Cleansing fragements of the Nothing from her mind, reducing them to little more then psychological ash. The name was like a curse on her lips; days, weeks of paralyzing doubt and helplessness as the catalyst to this.

"Just think about this for one moment, you can't understand what you are getting yourself into!" He retorted bitterly, his heart beating rapidly in his chest. Adrenaline fueled his rage, the first true emotion to break through his near perfect mask in years. Reaching out reflexivly, he grabbed her wrist tightly- knowing, somewhere in his mind that it would leave bruises come morning.

"Let me go!" She cried, pulling against the vise-like hold he kept to her. Disgusted by the part of her that wished her would pull her closer. Help her dash to pieces the Nothing, craving the blistering emotion to tear the numbness away from her soul. "You don't know anything about what I am capable of!" She added, twisting her arm around, trying to loosen his grip.

"Don't do this!" He said sharply. A flush had risen up in her cheeks, and Tom forced himself to focus on her words, and only her words. Not on the way his entire body seemed warmer, or the way her breath rasped across her lips in a cruel parody of a gasp. But his willpower had never been up to the challenge, the power, she possessed, and with a sharp tug he pulled her closer to him.

Even as she craved it, Hermione was repulsed, bracing herself against against his chest with her free hand. His face was only inches from her own, eyes locked in a battle so fierce that you could almost see the intensity of the sparks that flew between them. His entire expression was nothing but complete and utter concentration- entralling, and exquisite in it's passion.

That though struck a nerve, chilling her to the very marrow of her bones. Her next words held all the warmth of an arctic glacier, sharp edged and cutting deep into Tom's mind.

"I don't take orders from murderers."

- ---

A little bit of tension there, for those of you who have been waiting for something to break.

Thanks to everyone who had taken the time to review, it means so much to me! Almost 100 reviews, I am totally floored!

Vanikoro

Hpfanf

Svelte Rose- and everytime you review, I remind myself I should put a note on livejournal

Speed of Darkness- I hope this is enough girl power for you!

Ryn- Since you were looking for a bit of a change… innocently whistles

Lisiegirl

Stevie K- this is what happens when you don't deal with the issues, lol

Enviousmoon

Blindfaith- a little more of that abnormal psych to analyse!

Nerys- Sometimes I think you are my greatest inspiration for this story, and good luck with that bothersome Miss Black

And last but not least, Sachita!


	15. Drowning In Truth

_Jukebox Plays- 'Forgiven' and 'Our Farewell' by Within Temptation. I strong suggest listening to them while reading this chapter. There is also a tissue warning in effect._

**Chapter 15**

If the Fates were even the smallest fragment of empathy for the human race, they would have let Tom Riddle turn around and leave the room. Those hateful words lancing across his freshly exposed heart, a red hot knife through fresh butter. The wound left in their wake, deep and already beginning to fester with bitterness. He stumbled backwards a step, as though she had struck him a physical blow. Though he could not for the life of him remember a single hurt that he had taken that pieced like this.

Hermione watched at her wrist fell from his nerveless fingers, ribboned with red marks that she knew would soon darken to the purple and green tones of a livid bruise. He stared at her, his grey eyes the color of the sky before a storm and a hundred times more chaotic. How long they stood there in the fading light, she did not know. Captured by his gaze, and knowing somewhere within her soul, beyond her own knowledge- that if she did not remedy this, then it would be too late.

But she did not know how. Her scarred and weary mind had locked away those pieces of her that could remember how to heal. How to draw him back from the edge of this cliffs edge that threatened to pull them both down. Down to something within themselves that they could not face, a place worse then Hell. Worse then the torments of the demons they knew, to the land of the pit fiends that haunted the deepest recesses of their nightmares.

Hermione stared into his eyes, like the centre of a hurricane they were. Chaotic with emotions that he had so long resisted- so long that he had forgotten how to feel them. And now they pounded against the wall of his conscious mind, a desperate bid for freedom from the prison that had held them so long.

In that moment, Hermione looked passed what she had known of him. Of the man that he had become, the killer of thousands. Of the not-human, barely living creature that had been the waking nightmare of the Wizarding world through not one, but two wars. And she realized something vital, something so shattering that it turned her stomach with guilt.

He was not that man yet.

That buried deep within the layers of repression and hatred, there was still a part of him that was fighting it. The part that had sat with her during the long, quiet evenings, and taken her out into the sunshine when she had despaired of ever seeing it again. That he had been beautiful to her in her hours of despair, and she had cast him off cruelly in return.

A rose by any other name, and he was Tom to her once. The young man that talked to her in those soft, even tones; academia, though she could not now remember what subject. Because it hadn't mattered to her then, before she let her hatred of his very name destroy all that they had begun to carefully construct. And now there was a void between them, carved and fashioned of her very words against her.

Murderer.

She had labeled him, and hated him in the moment she did. Now, she despised herself all the more having said it. If he had been the man she had accused him of being, then would she still be standing here? No, of course not.

Hermione watched as he pulled further away from her, his face once more closing off behind the mask that he had constructed so carefully. Tempered and forged in the fires of his own loneliness, his isolation smoothing the corners until the mask fit him nearly as well as his own skin.

"Tom, I… I'm sorry."

She said, reaching out for him instinctively. He looked down at her outstretched hands, palms facing the ceiling in a gesture of almost supplication. As though she was asking his forgiveness for tearing his sweet delusions from him. Leaving him bare to the elements of the world, which would soon enough strip the very flesh from his bones. So close he had come to hope she would be different.

That if he hid what he was, this foul creature that moved his arms and legs and dwelled within his spirit- that she would stay with him. And even if she had said nothing at all, he would have been happier for her very presence. But somehow she knew, she had discovered the secret that he had held at such a cost. That he was barely human, wretched and cursed for taking the life of another. For the very blood in his veins that tainted him against his humanity.

And whatever sweetness was left in his soul died a little more, as he turned away from her pleading eyes with one smooth turn of his heel. Closing her off from his frozen countenance, casting her off with the same disregard for her that she had held for him. Protectively, desperately rebuilding the walls and bars that had built his armored prison. But for all that, he could not bring himself to walk away.

Hermione pressed a hand to her chest, as though trying to still her heart that seemed so very determined to leap out of the confines of her breast. It hurt to breath, her chest punctured with the tears she refused to allow herself to cry. It was like this one thing had stirred to life everything that she had been so tenuously, so carefully, boxing away in the back of her mind.

She could almost feel the sticky, dried blood on her hands. Of the men and women she had killed without a second thought. Without knowing their names, or their origins, only that they were the enemy and needed to be stopped. Of the countless times her wand had flashed with the green of the Killing Curse, the terrible syllables spilling over her lips.

Avada Kedavra.

And what made her so gifted? So special that some twist in Fate or time had decreed that she should survive where everyone else had fallen? She had no reason to be here, no secret reserve of strength that could carry her through this life and through all the rest of the years that might follow here. And she remembered the faces of the fallen, lying piled on top of each other like children's macabre building blocks, and the black curse scars that laced over her stomach- and why hadn't it killed her?

A low, keening sob caught her attention. It was a sound she had heard only a handful of times, and had hoped desperately would never cross her ears again in this lifetime. It had been the sound Molly Weasley had made as she tried to wake up her sweet husband, knowing that there was no magic the world that would bring him back.

It was the sound that George had made as his brother suffocated to death in his arms, gasping apologies for everything he had ever done to hurt him. Making him promise to carry on without him, between blood soaked breaths that brought him no air.

It was on Neville's lips as Luna was lit with a flash of green, and dropped to the soaked earth in front of his feet. And Narcissa Malfoy as her only son was torn from her arms for 'questioning.'

Harry had made that sound with the realization that it had gone too far. That killing Voldemort was no enough to cease the madness that had taken over everything they had fought, and killed, and sold their souls for.

And she realized dimly through all that, that this time she was the one making the noise. She lifted a delicate hand to the hot tears that spilled down her cheeks, a slow movement in contrast to the lurching sobs that could no longer be held back. The look in Tom's eyes had cast the final blow to the dam, and it had all flooded forth with the terrible weight of her guilt.

She stumbled backwards against the bed, gripping the cold metal rails with all the strength she could muster. And still the world seemed to spin around her, unsteady on its axis. And it was overpowering, and awful, every gasping sob torn from the depths of her very being. Images and faces that swam in front of her eyes. Families torn apart without warning.

Hermione bit down on her lower lip until she tasted blood, and still it did not stop the hysteria that was beginning to grip her in its paralyzing grasp. Draco Malfoy had defected, to the side of light out of fear- and taking his mother with him. She remembered the horror on his face when they came, members of the Ministry they had not known were loyal to Voldemort. The first victim of the black bags.

Her stomach lurched sharply as she remembered the bags. Obscuring every sight of their faces, as they were lead away into the black ministry vehicles to be questioned. Not a single person who had been Bagged ever came back. They came for them in the dead of night, in the middle of the working day- tearing mothers and father's from their terrified children's birthday parties. From the arms of their lovers, from their suicide dreams- once you were to be Bagged, it was a death knell.

"I'm no better." Hermione managed to rasp, reaching out for his still form with hands that clawed at the open air. "Please don't leave me, Tom… I can't do this alone."

- ---

A short chapter, I know. And now for the fun part- you guys get to have a say in the next part of the story!

I have mulled this over in my mind since I initially decided to write this chapter, and I have never come up with a conclusion. Does he turn around? Does he ignore her plea and walk out the door? I really want to hear what all of you are thinking. So cast your lot, I can't wait to read your reviews.

It's my gift to you guys, since we're broken the 100 reviews mark! You have no idea how wowed and flattered I am at this point. All of you are amazing. Truly, truly amazing.

_Svelte Rose_- I'm not sure how much poetry is in this chapter! I admit to crying through

half of it.

_Blindfaith_- Make sure to get more sleep ) And I think there is enough to psych in this chapter to satisfy even you.

_Hpfanf_- no kisses, but cast you vote and maybe soon

_Unenlightened_- Double spellchecked, just for you. And I hope you like this unmasked Hermione as much as you did in the last chapter.

_WamprickNyx_- since you're a new reader, I'm really hoping this if living up to your expectations.

_Ryn_- You know, I thought it would turn their relationship negative as well.. Just goes to show that my muses like to string me along with the rest of you.

_Enviousmoon_- Intense enough for ya? Lol

_Speed of Darkness_- Well, there's no Dursley-esque Headmaster in this one, but I hope you still liked it! Jk

_Stevie K_- Well of course she owes him an explanation… She just had to come around to that point herself. I think she's getting the picture now though.

_Sachita_- You didn't log in! Naughty naughty, because then I couldn't thank you properly when I got your review. So that you bunches now, even if it is a bit late!

And last but not least, Lisiegirl- well, no more encounters of the Hat kind, but hopefully you enjoyed it )


	16. Stumbling in the Dark

_This chapter is dedicated to Cristina and Ryn, for helping me to make sense of my very conflicting ideas for this chapter- I couldn't have done it without you!_

_Jukebox Plays- Signal Fire, by Snow Patrol_

**Chapter 16**

Tom stood there with all the silence and frozen solemnity of a Grecian statue. His hands hung limp at his sides, face tiled towards the cold, gray flagstones of the Infirmary floor. He could hear the unbearable choking sobs of the woman behind him, and closed his eyes against the noise. Of course it didn't help, and only served to amplify the sound until everything else was blocked out of his mind.

_It would be easy to make her stop. _The thought crossed his mind with bitter clarity, spinning around the interior of his mind like a diseased mosquito, waiting for the opportune moment to pass on the infection. She was so close, pleading with him not to leave her alone in her abject misery. But he had no words for her, no sympathy left in the battered ruins of his soul to offer as balm to her pain.

But oh the noise was a familiar one. He could remember so clearly, the dark, endless feeling that nothing was ever going to be right again. That he was helpless, hopeless to change the inevitable tides of change that were tearing all the good away from his life. That his grasp was simply never going to be enough to hold onto her.

_Tom! You're back from school!_

_One more chapter before bed?_

_Oh don't worry about me, silly._

It was almost like swallowing tacks or razorblades, the piercing edges stabbing outwards from his stomach. Pinioning him against the corkboard of his own memories, drowning beneath the echoes of a familiar voice he had so carefully blanked from his life.

It had been a cold day when he returned to the Orphanage, in the summer before his sixth year of school. It had rained recently, and the streets were still slippery and clean, scrubbed clean of dust and debris by the downpour. But he didn't care, as he had kept his eyes peeled for one little blonde head amidst the cluster of children in the yard. Most of them he had known since they were born, names and faces that had begun to blur together with the years.

They came, and families took them away. And in the end, it was just the two of them that were left. No family wanted him, he was too old, too strange. There was something about him that had always caused the prospective parents to simply move onto the next child in line. It was an intangible thing, but it had only reinforced his own impression that there was something wrong with him, something that could never be loved.

But Emily… She was lovely, and sweet, and perfect in his eyes. But the families never wanted the blonde girl with the freckles, and soon enough she grew too old as well. He had never understood why she was never chosen, but it had suited him well enough. Emily was the sister he had never had, the closest thing to family, in a place where the very word was a curse and a cherished dream.

And he had read her stories under the old tree in the corner of the yard, and taught her to play chess as best he knew how. Emily had loved _'Alice in Wonderland', _and he had learned to love it for her. She told him that his ability to coerce people to his opinion was a gift, and not a curse. And when she had gotten trapped out on the slippery rocks when the tide came in, he had carefully picked his way along to rescue her. He barely even noticed when a nasty fall had smashed his arm against the submerged rocks, breaking the bone.

She had been ill when he left for his fifth year. Told him that a cold was no reason for him to miss the train back to the school he loved so well. He had told her stories of the wonders of Hogwarts, and if she had believed the tales to be fictional- at least they were beautiful and fairytale like. She had told him to go to the place where he belonged, "There are some places we just can't follow each other."

And she had been gone when he returned. Her words proving more true and awful then he could have imagined in his worst imaginings. There should have been a cure, and they should have brought her to the Hospital earlier- but it spread too fast. Tuberculosis, and the Orphanage was nearly shut down. And when he returned, there was only a little stone with her name, to mark the place where his heart had been buried.

They had sent him to the father who did not want him. It was not safe of the Orphanage until the doctor's were sure that no sign of the disease remained there. And it was as though the rug had been pulled out from under him, and cast him into the shadows. His soul had made the sound that Hermione was making now, as he had laid the wilted daisies over her grave.

Tom lightly fingered the wand in his sleeve, pressed against his skin like the answer to all of his problems. This girl knew too much, that was all too clear now. Her very presence had done nothing but distract, threatening to undo all that he had worked so hard for. Her silence and presence sliding beneath every fault in the walls he had though so perfectly crafted.

With seemingly no effort at all, Hermione had held up the mirror in front of his eyes- and shown him that his defenses were only perfect because nobody had ever tried to look passed them. Made him doubt every plan that he had so carefully pieced together, every action that had lead him to this impasse.

That with the newly liberated humanity, he wished only to tell her that it would be alright. That she was nothing like the tainted and twisted creature that he was, that for all he appeared human, it was something wrong beneath that surface. To keep her safe, and well, and his. But it had been too long, and the silence only served the purpose of the other side.

She could not be trusted to keep his secret. That while there was even the slightest chance that she knew what he had done, then he would never be able to rest easy. Tom could not bear the thought of someone having that kind of leverage over him, that a single whisper could bring his entire life to a halt behind the cold stone and wrought iron of Azkaban prison. To never again walk free, to be labeled for what he truly was- a Him he could not face.

Tom felt the slim wand slide into his hand, bringing with it the calming numbness of a decision made. His eyes revealed nothing of his previous indecision, only the cold and calculating frozen grayness that had for so long been its norm. All shade of color drained from them, all humanity, sympathy, pity cleared from his mind. There would be, couldn't be allowed to be, a place for those weaknesses in the way of his greatness.

He turned to face her, the one he had let come too dangerously close to disarming him completely. She was perched on the edge of the narrow cot; her knees pulled up tightly against her chest, braced against the metal rails. His movement attracted her attention, as her red lips formed a faint plea of help. _Don't leave me._ But the words were lost in the pounding of blood against his eardrums.

Leveling his wand at her heart, Hermione's bloodshot eyes flew open in horror. The expression on his face could not be confused as anything but pure nothingness. As though he had become the embodiment of the place she had drifted so long. She reached out with one hand, shaking her head and setting those chocolate colored curls to spring and glance off her reddened cheeks.

"Avada Kedavra,"

And in a flash of brilliant light, the color of ripe limes and crackling energy, Hermione collapsed. Her eyes were open, but nothing dwelled within them any longer. One spiral curl rested against her cheek, and with an indifferent hand, he brushed it off her already cooling skin.

"It is better this way…" He heard himself say softly under his breath, watching her skin return to the ashen pallor it had been when he had first seen her. When she had still been his to covet- though he had not known that he felt at the time. The magnetic pull that had drawn him to her, night after night, dispelled in a single blinding moment of the blackest magic.

_NO! It's not like that!_

He screamed at himself, dragging himself away from the hateful vision that had so consumed him. His wand was still securely tucked into his sleeve, still facing away from the young woman who was struggling to control the convulsive whimpers that slipped from her lips. Tom felt a frigid shock run through his body, tensing every muscle as it flowed through him.

And like so many times since meeting her, Tom came to her out of his own conscious action. Turning slowly, seeing her as he had in that vision that had rocked him to his core. That he could have even considered, for a single second in time, doing such a vile thing to this lovely creature that had placed herself at his mercy. Asking for his forgiveness, as nobody ever had before. Because she knew she had gone too far, and not because of any action of his.

Because she wanted him to know that she was sorry.

The way she looked at him, waiting on his words with her faltering courage. Appealing to the angels of his better nature that were so completely sickened at his own thoughts. Self loathing coiled in his chest, a tightness that was hard to breathe through. Suffocating him with shame. And nothing he could bring himself to say, not a single word of comfort could spill passed his paralyzed lips.

Hermione watched as the emotions swirled and spiraled in the depths of those unknowable gray eyes. Saw the moment he moved beyond her reach, and the fragile wall that was placed immoveable between them.

"I… I can't do this. I'm sorry."

Were his only words, as he turned once more, and left the Infirmary. Not daring to pause a moment longer, terrified to the marrow of his bones that some part of him might take it upon itself to act on his terrible vision- fleeing the source of his guilt. And as the heavy door closed behind him, Tom swore that he would never again endanger Hermione by being near her.

He would keep her safe from the most vile creature in existence, Himself.

- ---

Thanks so much too each and every one of you that gave suggestions- I don't think I could have finished this chapter without that invaluable insight into my little creation! Sometimes it does take a third party to put everything into perspective, and I'm pretty sure I know exactly what's going to happen from her to the end.

On that note, I do have one unpleasant subject to bring up. While I have no problem accepting corrections for spelling, grammar (ect) I do however take GREAT offence to readers who accuse me of writing Mary Sues. That is a really vile term that implies that the character in question is entirely out of the realm of good sense and taste. It is the closest equivalent of 'Mudblood' for fanfiction writers. Keep that in mind when reviewing, please.

Svelte Rose (and go check out her work people, it's very VERY good!)

Unenlightened

Nerys

Ivory

Sachita

Lisiegirl

Stevie

Michaela

Enviousmoon

And Speed of Darkness

isHis


	17. The Long Wait

_Jukebox Plays- What ever you like! I couldn't find anything for this chapter. Suggestions are appreciated for good music to write to._

**Chapter 17**

And so began the strangest game of Cat and Mouse that had been played at Hogwarts for more years than anyone could remember. The tension between the players was almost a magnetic, tangible thing- repelling any who dared to step within the space between the two opposing sides. Like some cursed comedy they circled each other, never noticing that they were not the only ones who had become interested in the discord between them.

And as the last of the bright autumn foliage turned brown, and was covered by the heavy weight of winter snow- it seemed as though the players had settled into their places, and the rest of the board waited anxiously for the stalemate to end.

The younger students gossiped amongst them selves, in childish voices they speculated about the handsome Head Boy, and this mysterious woman from places unknown. The Staff spoke quietly to each other, some placing bets on which of the players would forfeit their position first.

It was the seventh years that were the most interested though, and watched with thinly veiled curiosity as they moved from class to class with the pair. Fascinated by every averted glance and soft, bitter sigh. They had watched Tom Riddle slowly turn himself away from them, the good in him slowly devoured by the darkness that had been obvious, even as a child.

And so Hermione was settled into the Ravenclaw dorms, and began her new life. And Tom once more re-entered his state of perpetual confinement. Neither one aware that all around them, it seemed the entire world was waiting for their little soap opera to end.

Ravenclaw was strange to Hermione after the warm, rough and tumble camaraderie of Gryffindor house. The walls had been hung with banners of scarlet and gold, and it had been a friendly, welcoming place. It had been her home away from home, in those years after finding out she was a witch. Coming to terms with the knowledge that her life would never be the same again.

But this was a different sort of place. The high tower walls were the cool shades of bronze and deep blue, and shelves covered nearly every available surface. It was a hushed and quiet place, a haven for those of learning and intellect. Even the students rarely spoke to one another, preferring the impartial company of their tomes and texts. Here there were no practical jokes, no gossiping girls huddled in the corners- these were the future doctors and politicians, and they took their roles seriously, even now.

Not to say that she didn't make any friends. Even in this den of verbatim memorization, there were some students that held to the true tenants of the scholar's House. There was Aislinn, with her incredibly long, wild curls in a shade of copper that reminded Hermione of Bill Weasley's coloring. She had wire framed glasses that slide down her nose when she was deep in thought, and a little smile that made people feel at ease. She blushed and stammered when talking to new people, and it took Hermione nearly a week of careful 'hellos' to see the witty girl underneath the shyness.

There was Jocelin, who was one of a set of triplets. His siblings had all been sorted into other houses, separating him from the support they all relied on. Sometimes, late at night they would sit up in the Common Room talking, and in dim light, she could almost pretend that he was someone else. Despite being in the same year, it was Hermione that introduced the two of them. Their shared love of medicine soon drew them into a conversation that Hermione could not follow.

And in these small ways she began to change everything. Her two friends did not question her history with the enigmatic Head Boy, nor delve too deeply into what's, where's and why's of her past. For that, she could not help but be grateful- for what answer could she give them?

The days were filled with study, the nights with bitter tears soaking her pillow. And in time, those too faded. But as her grief began to ebb, one thing became more and more obviously wrong.

The curse scars that she had borne when she appeared here had not faded. Unlike physical wounds, the scarring caused by a Dark curse will fade to a dull silver color as they heal. Such a process took anywhere between a few hours (in the case of minor hexes) to almost a month (when it was much more serious magic at work) It had been September when she arrived- and as Christmas drew nearer, they remained the color of the blackest coal.

Her strength had not returned as she had expected it to, and as the season settled into the coldest months of the year, the malaise increased with every passing day. An exhaustion that had settled into the marrow of her bones, an aching chill that permeated every muscle and vein- the frigid touch of a curse that did not exist, awakening from it's long dormant sleep.

The holidays came, and the majority of the student body gladly hopped aboard the train for home. Hermione watched with bitter envy as Jocelin met his other two halves in the Great Hall, the three of them moving towards the door arm in arm. It was a comfortable familiarity that she knew would not fade with time, the only girl of the three pinned in by her protective brothers. And for a moment Hermione saw herself in them, flanked to either side by the two boys she knew she would never see in this life again.

And so it was that a handful of students were left behind, one or two from each House, that had no home to call their own. Ravenclaw tower echoed in the still emptiness, a sort of hollow ringing that had always been filled with the rustle of pages and breathing. Had it been quiet before, it now sounded to her ears like the hush of an ancient tomb.

The sun had set beyond the horizon, the misty hues of pink and purple faded and withdrew from the walls of the Girl's dormitory. Hermione sat on the window seat, looking out through the lacy artwork of Jack Frost on the glass. Her mind wandered painting out of the black and white in front of her eyes, the face of the very man she had been so assiduously avoiding.

It seemed as though that night in the Infirmary was both an eternity ago, and the barest of moments. He did not look well, in every glance she stole from beneath her eyelashes, he seemed to have paled. His eyes were shadowed by bleakness, a numb and despairing stain that made her blood run cold. Since that night he had not come near her, not even looked in her direction.

_Like I've got some sort of disease that he doesn't want to catch._

She thought to herself bitterly, pulling a pillow up against her chest. But even as she thought it, doubt remained to tickle the back of her mind. She had so many questions, and not a single answer to set her mind at ease. Something had gone wrong along the way, at some point she could not define. Perhaps it was the lingering feeling that she did not belong here at all.

That Tim was an entity unto itself that should not be played with. It could not be bent to man's will, nor shaped to suit his purpose. But this had not been what she wanted! It had been her design to fling herself back half a century, into this twisted not-relationship with the man that would destroy everything. She had only wanted a few hours, to warn them- to tell them to flee while they still had the chance.

_You know, they wouldna left anyway. It wasn't in their nature to run from the danger, but t'face it head on- wands a'blazin, come Hell or high water in the only way they knew how. Darlin', what more could you have done there, that what you can do now? Go back, and the best you can hope for is t'die along with the rest of them. Cast your lot to the boatman, for all the good it does._

_Hermione, you've got this chance to be someone- To live, and learn, and have a life. 'Tis a rare gift, if you've the strength to take it. You've seen so much death that it's more familiar then living- so much dark that light is a foreign thing. Ask yourself- is that that they've wanted for you? _

_Would Harry and Ron have let themselves give up? Would they've let you give up? And more importantly- would you have let them? Or would you have stood up, and rallied them to muster wha'ever strength they had, to keep going? They're still with you, even if ye can't see them anymore. And as long as you remember, then nothing, and nobody can ever take that away from you._

The soft Scottish accented words whispered into her mind from the place where her fear still resided. As the months had passed, it seemed as though her mind would forever equate her inner monologue with Oliver Wood- a fact she thought was rather ironic. Suiting, almost, that it would be his voice to tell her to keep going, to keep fighting when all hope was lost.

Because she thinks it would make him happy to know. That something of his determination had transferred itself to her subconscious mind- never give up, never surrender to defeat. Hermione wrapped her arms around herself tightly, hugging the pillow to her chest. Disassociating the voice from the memory of the man with the broken mind, Crucio'd until it shattered, unable to process anymore. She wondered if he would have kept fighting, even then. Now she would never know.

The spider webbing of scars across her stomach throbbed painfully, beating in time with her heart. She had searched for the curse, for the cure- and came up with naught to show for her efforts but paper cuts on her fingers. Madam McAllister, and Professor Dumbledore had thrown in their efforts as well, but in the end, the conclusion was a bitter one.

The curse simply did not exist in any book, no cure seemed to combat its insidious leeching effects. And as her classes became more difficult, her magic depleting with her energy, Hermione had long since realized that it was only a matter of time until her own body was stripped of its connection to the magic- and then at last her life. With each piercing throb, the ache twinned its way deeper into her body.

Grabbing a sweater from the foot of her bed, Hermione held onto one of the posts for support. The lightheaded dizzy spells were becoming more frequent, and soon she knew traversing the staircases from Ravenclaw tower to the Great Hall would be a dangerous undertaking in and of itself. In years past she would not have needed a sweater, just to leave her dormitory- but these days it seemed even the effort of staying warm was more then her body was capable of handling.

The four long house tables had been done away with, leaving only a single, round one in the middle of the room. The sturdy wooden surface was piled high with an assortment of things, enough to feed an army. But it would be nothing compared to the Christmas feast, in just a weeks time. She quietly hoped that by then, she would have managed to divine a cure for this wretched curse.

The table was already surrounded by the gathering of people left at the school for the festive season. The hall was decorated with long streamers of holly and ivy, with tiny red berries that glittered like perfectly round rubies in the torchlight. The air was filled with glorious scents of pine and fresh bread, the sounds of happy voices and laughter.

And yet he sat alone. To each side was an empty chair, and Hermione watched from the doorway as Tom absently pushed a single pea around his plate, lost in whatever thoughts occupied his mind. He had avoided her for nearly four months, left her alone to the merciless clannishness of her own House. For that long, he had refused to meet her eye, or speak a single syllable, to anyone, she had noticed.

Picking her way around the table, Hermione nodded absently in greeting to a very few that waved hello. He was only a few feet away, and she could feel the nervousness rising up in her chest- quelling it by sheer nerves alone. This had truly gone on long enough, and she would end it here.

"Tom? Is this seat taken?" She asked, ignoring the clashing torn confusion that met her own deceptively calm gaze. It hardly mattered, as she only waiting a single heartbeat before sinking down into the empty chair- grateful for the rest. She could feel her muscles trembling as though she had run a marathon, instead of simply made her way down for dinner.

His expression was nearly priceless, as he nodded in surprise. It was true that he had not spoken to her, but equally true that she had not sought him out either. He could smell the delicate scent of vanilla from her long curls that were almost close enough to touch. And to his distress that he realized how much more wan and tired she seemed.

"What's happened to you?" Tom asked after a pause, tilting the conversation away from himself. He turned slightly in his chair, unconsciously leaning closer to the warmth she infused into him with her very presence. He had long since stopped caring that she was a weakness, his own self loathing fueling his resolve to stay as far from her as he could.

But here she was so close, and his willpower once more proving to be unequal to the task of pushing her away. And he would hate himself for being so selfish with her safety later- for this moment, he could only drink in her closeness like a drowning man viewing the shore. And he didn't have any better words, his mind trying to catch up to what the rest of him already knew. That it would be a long life, shaded in monochrome gray, without her in it.

She turned to him, tilting her head up to look him in the eye. The months apart had given her ample time to clear her violently conflicting feelings towards the handsome man in front of her. Time to realize that the darkness in him was no different from that which she knew existed within herself. And perhaps it was a thing to run from, but how can you run from that which resides in you? She would be no hypocrite to fear it in him.

Pressing her fingers against her lips, Hermione swallowed back the pride that was so much a vital part of her. It was pride and unswaying hatred that had brought them to this impasse- and the months had taught her stubborn self the value of humble pie.

"I… I didn't know as much about Dark Magic as I thought."

And it was as close to an apology as she could summon- but he asked for no more. It was an olive branch of tentative forgiveness. No carte blanche offer of friendship, and to some it may not seem like much of an apology at all. But Tom saw in her the tiny flickers of fear, and could not bring himself to cast her away a second time. Nodding slightly, his expression softened. His voice was the same smooth cadence that had become familiar to her ear, as he accepted the olive branch on his own terms.

"Well, perhaps I can help you."

And maybe they would regret it later, indeed they knew they probably would- but for that moment, they could only hope that they were wrong. And realizing that they would never know for sure unless they tried.

- ---

Hey everyone! Wow, those transition chapters are a real pain… rolls eyes And as a warning, Here Be Character OOC-ness. Obviously they were going to have to go strongly against the cannon eventually. So that's my warning- I don't want to hear people whining that 'Tom isn't that nice!' Or 'Hermione should have known that all along!' Nope, just accept it, or stop here, aiight?

However, if you had read the fact that this is indeed a romance (albeit a strange one) then you should have already been prepared for that fact, and feel free to discard said warning!

Thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter. I was actually planning on writing something else tonight pokes lisie But this demanded to be written instead.

Akira

Sachita

Speed of Darkness

WamprickNyx

Ocean Reflection

Blindfaith

Unenlightened

Svelte Rose

Enviousmoon

Michaela- I love that name, just for the record!

Tom the Riddle

Nerys

Lisiegirl

Ryn

Vanikoro


	18. Acceptance and Answers

_Dedicated to Svelte Rose, who has labeled herself my #1 fan. Just because the thought of meriting a #1 fan is just so cool._

**Chapter 18**

Hermione Granger was very dedicated to her studies. It had been both her blessing and her bane, the cause of ridicule in her younger years. Her devotion had saved lives during the war, planned the perfect strategies- and watch them fall to ruinous pieces around her. But never before had she been forced to study through the knowledge that her life alone weighed in the balance of success or failure.

The silence of the Ravenclaw Common Room was a deafening, each crackle of the logs in the hearth, or whispering sound of the turning pages echoed into her head. The words blurred in her sight, fading and morphing into linear patterns and nonsense squiggly lines across the parchment. For all the sense it made, she realized she might as well be reading ancient Greek. Save for the undeniable fact that ancient Greek could be more easily translated.

The Library was an equally barren place. With all the students gone for the holidays, it was as hollow as an empty tomb. No children being a little too loud, or passing notes between the tables. The endless shelves of books spread on into the dark, holding their council, and theirs alone. The creeping fatigue clouded her mind like opium, begging her to put down the books and sleep. To rest her head, and close her eyes, and make all the aching stop.

And so it was that desperate desire to solve this puzzle of her mortality, and the more human craving for contact, that drew her to the portrait of Pandora that guarded the chambers of the Head Boy and (absent) Head Girl. Hermione stood before the painting, looking into the crux of her own indecision. The dark haired Pandora smiled at her sympathetically, lifting her watercolor hands from the lid of the box. The Box that held all the evils of mankind, waiting for the chance to spread over the world like a disease.

Hermione could empathize. During the War, her own death had been a trivial matter. Every morning she awoke beside men and women with the same fears, and the same knowledge that each day must be lived for it's fullest- because there was so much a chance that by dusk, it would be forever altered. You learned to drown out the sounds of couples reaffirming that, for this one moment, they could be together.

And through it all she had smiled, and wished Ron well as he grasped with both hands, a black powder love with Lavender- the type that ignited with a great explosion, and left both people reeling from the intensity. It was the kind of love she could not give him, and so Hermione had learned to move past that as well, buried in the studies that sustained her.

Bit here in this place, it was her life alone that stood in the balance. Her own existence that teetered on the razor fine edge between a long life, and a certain sudden and painful death. And for the first time in her life, Hermione feared for her own life. Muted with the hundreds of thousands of What Ifs that circled around in her mind.

When the silent hallways had beaten her, stripping away the defense of her own studious logic; leaving her with only the doubts and maybes that she would never be able to find an answer for. Reaching out, she leaned against the wall in exhaustion, only asking the sweet faced Pandora to tell Tom that she was outside.

The tiny common was a room he rarely used. Too often filled with the big band music and new rock that was such a favorite of the Head Girl, Tom preferred what little solitude and quiet he could garner behind his own closed door. But for all that, it was a comfortable room. Warm, neutral colors that reflected the flickering orange and gold firelight. A soft couch and a loveseat that rested at angles towards the hearth, and the small wooden table that was currently layered with uneven stacks of every text and tomb he could find relating to the Dark Arts.

More then a few were taken from the confines of his own small but impressive collection. Libya was coiled upon a copy of _**The Human Mirror: The Truth Behind Dark Magic**_, basking in the warm glow of the fireplace. It was a rare occasion that she was let out of the bedroom, and the change of scenery was a cherished treat. She raised her small green head a fraction when one of the portraits announced a visitor- but was content to let her companion deal with whatever had arisen.

A brief flash of irritation crossed Tom's elegant features as he marked his place in the book that was open on his lap. It was a tedious task, where every possible success magically transfigured itself to an impassible dead end. Indeed, as the books dwindled in number, so to did his faith in his ability to solve the problem.

The corridor was a little chillier then the common room, as Tom swung open the portrait door. But all thoughts of irritation fled when he took in the sight of the woman before him. Her lips were the color of the ashes of roses, set in a face that was too pale by far. Her eyes were underscored by circles such a dark purple that they looked like bruises. Her whole body leaned against the wall, as though balanced between the support and the weight of the bag she carried with her.

No words passed between them as he stepped out the way, allowing her to pass slowly into the warmth of the room behind him. A sudden impulse urged him to help her, quelled by the self-loathing that stilled his hands. He would not touch her, not taint her with the foul stain of physical contact. He pushed his hands roughly into the pockets of his black uniform pants, and watched as she carefully lowered herself into the vacant loveseat.

Tom took his own place once more, waiting for her to explain her sudden presence at his door. Pushing aside the quiet whisper in the back of his mind that he did not mind in the least, that as long as he could see her, glowing in the light of the fire, framed by dark, then she could stay as long as she wished. He picked up his book once more, running a finger absently over the slightly uneven edges of the pages. Anything to keep him from giving into the temptation to reach out for her.

Her brown eyes reflected the firelight in the color of sherry, as they touched over the surface of the room with mild curiosity. Coming to rest on the slender coils of the leaf green garden snake that was now watching her with more then a fair share of vested interest. Those black eyes glittered with intelligence, beyond that of the few snakes she had come in contact with in the past.

And part of her didn't want to know, feared the answer that a part of her mind knew must be coming. Refusing to waste what would possibly be the last days of her life with mind games and tricks. As she looked into those cunning, calculating eyes and asked quietly, "What's your name?"

Tom watched the interaction between his familiar and his… Whatever Hermione was- with faintly amused interest. His familiar had never taken well to others, reciting the evils and ills that she had befallen at the hands of young humans before she had met him. And at the hands of the cruel Slytherins afterwards. And so it was with a mix of surprise and respect that he listened to Hermione address the serpent, and not simply ask him, as most other people would.

A long pause followed, broken only by the faint popping hiss of the pitch in the logs coming in contact with the bright flames. While Libya looked over the brown haired girl, and weighted and measured her worth- valuing her against the other humans that she had known in her years. Her tongue lightly flickered out of her mouth as she turned her wedge shaped head towards Tom and hissed,

_I like this one. She doesn't act as though I am a witless creature at your command._

Both humans felt as though they had passed some impossible and sudden test, as Tom turned to her and said, "Her name is Libya," And Hermione couldn't help the rush of relief that surged through her veins at being proven wrong. This was not the cursed Nagini that had been the constant companion of Lord Voldemort. The venomous serpent that they had never managed to create an antidote for.

Lifting one of the books from her bag, Hermione opened to the marked page. Tom followed suit; and soon a pleasant stillness filled the room. It was the comfortable silence of two people lost in their own thoughts. Both reminded of those first simple days after she had awakened in the Infirmary. Pulled around full circle by the same magnetic force that had drawn him to her time after time.

And had brought her to him, when she had nowhere else to turn. If they questioned the other, then they would be forced to question their own actions. And so they remained quiet, and for the most part content. Though since that last night in the hospital wing, there had been in their minds a new element. A quiet lingering whisper that the distance between them was better crossed.

The firelight was orange and red, and his hair reflected the color as an almost violet, instead of the highlights of blue it had in the sunlight. Hermione looked at him carefully over of the top of her book, drinking in this side of him that she had so rarely had the chance to see. His grey eyes scrolled across the narrow lines of black text, the tip of one finger almost caressing the edges of the pages, as though he was anxious to turn them.

His skin was so fair as to almost repel the light of the flames, leaving them to dance in strange patterns of light and dark against his cheek. His lips open, very faintly, as he drew in a quietly frustrated breath. Apparently the passage did not agree with him, as he set down the book- and she quickly lowered her own eyes to the page in front of her.

"Do you think we're going to find anything?"

The words slipped out of her mouth unbidden, as she mentally cursed her own doubt. Tom looked over at her, his face an unreadable façade, softened ever so slightly from the cold marble he showed to the rest of the world.

"Why would you doubt it?" As much as he would like to, he could not bring himself to tell her that all would be well. Looking at her, pale against the dark russet color of the loveseat behind her, it seemed she was fading away from him already. One foot slipping ever closer to the open, gaping maw of an open and greedy grave.

"There are so many things I wanted to do… I don't want to die without, I mean, if I never have the chance to." She admitted after a long pause, setting down her book on the table- an excuse not to meet whatever disdainful emotion she was sure would be simmering in his gaze. She could barely tolerate the weakness in that statement, as true as it may be- he was sure to be disgusted.

It was a small couch that she was sitting on, and so when his weight gingerly settled on the very far edge, it seemed as though the very room had begun to close in around them. She could almost feel the warmth of his skin, and she could smell the scent of wintergreen and peppermint that was so uniquely Tom.

His body had acted without his permission. Some long dormant part of his mind acting against the grain that he had tried to mold himself into. The passing thought of her fading away had sent a sharp glacial chill into his blood, numbing all though save for the almost overwhelming- _don't you dare let her go._

And it was going against everything that he had promised himself.

And it went against everything that she thought she had known to be true.

But when Hermione finally forced herself to look up at him, there was no derision in his face. No condemnation for her moment of frailty. The face looking back at her was oddly hesitant, acting so far out of his usual part. The script for this scene had not been written, their ad libbing carrying them until this point- where words abandoned them completely.

"Hermione I…" Tom began, his hand reaching out to touch her cheek. The pressure in his chest increasing as he realized that she was still warm. That no spectre of Death had taken her from him yet. Marveling at the tiny motion, of her leaning ever so slightly into his touch. Allowing himself to believe for a still moment in time, that he may not be the only one who was drawn to the contact between them.

Not caring that it was a mistake, and finally silencing for the time, the little nay saying voice that dwelled in the back of her mind. Drawing towards him, seeing the unease in his eyes that she felt mirrored in herself. Her gaze touching on the perfect curve of his lower lip as she tilted her head to the side slightly. She watched as the room faded, her eyes slowly drifting closed, crosshatched by her dark lashes- until the scene became nothing but the red firelight glowing through her eyelids. Then the black, as he came between her and the fire.

The slight touch of his breath on her skin, and the almost feverish anticipation that she had never felt before. And then they met, in the barest feather light brush of their lips across each other. A nervous and hesitant touch that pulled her in closer, even as he pulled away.

Wrapping both arms around her tightly, Tom pressed a kiss to the wild curls that were so uniquely and perfectly a part of her. His voice was low, and rasped raw against the edges, genuine and overwhelming emotion coloring the usual smooth, even tones. It sent a shiver down her spine, even as she melted against him.

"I won't let anything happen to you."

And no matter the odds, Hermione believed him.

…

Tom carefully reached for the last book on the teetering tower. The flames in the fireplace had burned down to barely more then embers, and so little light that it was hard to read by. But her every breath ghosted along the back of his hand, reinforcing his determination to solve the mystery of the curse that had befallen her. He would question the logic later- perhaps.

He silently thought to himself that maybe, just maybe, he wouldn't need to catalogue and define it away. Adding the cold touch of harsh logic to this flawlessly perfect moment, and the stirrings of joy he felt every time he looked down at the woman curled against him, overcome by the draining exhaustion of the curse.

It was a small book, bound in dark brown leather and stamped with faded gold letters in the corner. _Tom Marvolo Riddle_ it read, as he flipped it open without glancing at the cover. Staring down at the answer to the problem that had tormented them, that had been so absent in the great books littering the table.

The vile, half finished curse of his own creation, staring up at him formed of the even, graceful curves of his own copperplate script. The answer, and his own condemnation.

They had not found the curse, because he had not finished it yet.

- ---

An incredible thank you to everyone who had reviewed this story! You are the reason and the inspiration behind every chapter- Thank you, and thank you again. 148 reviews. In the nearly 10 years I've been writing fan fiction, I have never had that kind of response. You all continually amaze me.

LunaLovegoss

Enviousmoon

Tom the Riddle

Nerys

Ryn

Voldy's pink teddy

Michaela

Akira

Ivory – thanks for the review, you didn't log in, so Im thanking you here!

Unenlightened

Lisiegirl

Sachita

Blindfaith

Svelte Rose


	19. Dawn

_Dedicated to Nerys. The final fork in the road between her Tom, and mine._

_Jukebox Plays: My Skin, by Natalie Merchant._

**Chapter 19**

They looked as though they had stepped out of the final scene of a Muggle romance movie. The firelight had dimmed to smoldering scarlet coals, tiny tendrils of smoke twisting and twining their way up the blackened chimney.

It was this faint light that cast the warm, gentle light over the couple that rested on the nearby couch. Hermione's head rested against the curve of Tom's shoulder, her face pale against the darkness of his robes. Her curls spilled over his chest, lightly brushing across the back of his hand with every shared breath. Shadows dwelled darker beneath her eyes, and he couldn't help the reflexive desire to hold her closer.

But the scene shatters under closer inspection. The small brown leather bound book that had fallen to the floor from his nerveless fingers. The way the young man looked down at the woman to his side with a mixture of horror and guilt flickering across features that had been known for never betraying his emotion. The way his lips silently formed around the words that stuck in his throat, unable to bring himself to risk disturbing her. _How can this be?_

But for all he wished to deny it, the facts were already starting to line up- shedding a hateful and bitter light upon the situation. The frozen chill that slipped like ice water into his veins, pulling him away from the heat of his companion's sleeping form. How trusting, as she lay still beside him. Her chest rose and fell with every shallow, measured breath; but how many more would be allowed?

The morbid part of his mind counted each breath, each heartbeat, committing them to a part of his mind that he had forgotten existed. Or perhaps it was a part of his mind that he had simply never had need of before. Before she can into his life, and showed him the cracks in his armor. The flaws in his plans. Making him, for the first time in his life, truly desire human contact.

And now he had it. Along with more and more questions that only she could answer.

But perhaps there was another way. Tom looked down at her, at the dark circles, and each and every fragile line of bone and skin that make up the face of the woman he was coming to…

_Coming to what, Tom?_

The darkest of magics, he had devoured with a mind set on only one task. To have power over those who had wronged him. To bring his own brand of order over the world that had never truly accepted him. And yet- this girl that slept so easily in the circle of his embrace; she had more power over him in her weakness then he had ever wielded in the height of his strength.

The brown book that had been prepared to be the focus of that very dark magic; the first steps of his own immortality. A study, he realized then, that he had all but forgotten since she had so suddenly dropped into his life. Like a catalyst to the humanity that he had pushed so far down into his soul.

A little voice in the back of his head warned that something was wrong. Something had changed in the slim few moments that his mind had been pulled away from the physical present. No longer a breath, a heartbeat, a pause; each action slowed from its natural rhythm. An ache blossomed in his chest, red and hot as the embers that still glowed in the hearth. Brilliant against the backdrop of the cold dead coals.

"Hermione, no, don't do this. You have to hold on just a little longer- we're so close to curing this." His voice trembled on the last words, slipping from the suffocating control he held over his every action. He could feel the time slithering away from them, pulling her away from his side like some insidious poison. Knowing the poison was of his own making. And the immorality of his actions barely plucked at his conscious mind as Tom gently rested the tip of his wand against her forehead, and murmured the Legilimency spell. Unfolding the petals of her mind, unresisting in her trusting slumber. Desperate for the answers that would prove his worst fears to be untrue.

_She was standing between two men, one with gingery red hair, the other a tousled black. The text in front of her blurred as they discussed Quidditch over her head. The indulgent smile she gave them, as her hand lifted the cover closed._

_Dripping red letters, three feet tall. "__**The Chamber of Secrets…Enemies of the Heir, beware."**__ The rest fading into the crack of her memory. The ticking trip-trip of a nervous heartbeat._

_The outline of a weathered and scarred table, surrounding yet another heavy book. The sinking sensation of imminent despair, and quiet acceptance of the fact. Creaking springs and the tapping of a headboard against a far wall. More then one, and wishing she were- for a moment- deaf._

_A black bag pulled roughly over the terrified and furious face of a man with hair the silvery blonde of the Malfoy's. Men in official looking Ministry robes, and eyes that were dead and vacant, controlled._

_Green and glowing, an ephemeral skull that floated lightly in the air. Twisting and run through by sinuous snake. Hovering over a simple, Muggle home. A familiar symbol, and flavored with her helpless tears. She had been too late._

_A thousand voices screaming, and the towers of Hogwarts ablaze in the night sky. Limning a man who could not even be defined as human. The waxy skin and the scarlet eyes that reflected emotion. The slits of his nose that quivered with every breath. _

_The bitter sickness that made him want to scream. That was no stranger, bent and deformed by a lust for power that exceeded reason. It was him. It was HIM. Tom Riddle… Lord Voldemort._

_The bright sizzling of magic, the flare of green light. Over and over, lighting up the sky, fireworks of unbelievable slaughter. The screaming and the prayers, all cut short._

_And the silence, as she stood in the Great Hall, bloody fingers slipping and sliding against the delicate rings of the Time Turner that was clutched in her grasp. __**"I need to make this better."**__ She had whispered, as the blood poured from her veins. Pooling on the floor around her feet, as she fell to the ground._

_The tiny hourglass shattering against the floor, releasing the magic that had imbued the pendant. Allowing it to serve its own purpose- and not bent to the will of the bearer. _

_Sending her back. The chance to __**make things better.**_

Tom tore himself from her mind, his entire body trembling with barely contained horrified disgust. The vision of Lord Voldemort floating in front of his eyes like the spectre of the vivid green Morsmordre. Burned into the space behind his eyelids, the truth of what he would become. The path set before him that he had believed etched in his very blood.

His ideals perverted for lust of power; greed and avarice and evil that had already begun to tarnish the good that had before held sway in his soul. The little witch beside him, her breaths growing shallower and further apart. The hot tears that disregarded his armor, sliding down his cheeks to dampen the wild curls that he twisted gently around his fingers.

"I was wrong; I was such a fool for so long… Don't leave me, please. I am the twisted evil that you must despise- but I want to change. I don't want to become that creature, I don't! I can be more then that, better then that!

You are not the cause of all the dark thoughts- you are the one that has saved me from acting on them. You are the light, and the best thing in my faded and useless existence. But I can't do this without you, Hermione. And there are so many things that I want to- that I _need _to tell you.

And I have never truly needed anything in my entire life, the way I need you. You have crawled under my skin, and I don't know how to separate myself from you. I don't even think I want to anymore. I have been so blinded by my own pride that I… I don't know when I stopped trying to push you away.

I want to wake up like this. I want to be able to touch you _whenever I want. _And I want everyone to know that you have bewitched the man who thought he had no soul to lose. No heart to be turned from its path by… By…"

Tom stopped, swallowing hard. The words were there at the tip of his tongue, pressing against the inside of his mind. His hand jerked towards the book on the floor, gripping it so tightly that his knuckles turned white. His short nails digging deeply into the soft leather worn shiny by use. It was the hated thing, the proof of all that he had not been able to overcome.

The noose that tightened around his neck, and pulled this sweet person away from him. The very thing that could not be allowed to control him anymore, the very reminder of the evil that he had sought to become. And with that thought, Tom Riddle hurled the diary into the still burning embers in the centre of the hearth.

Watching as the heat seared the pages, little tongues of flame quickly leaping up to devour the dry parchment. Sliding along the cheap leather, sending up acrid black smoke. Burning away the proof, redemption through fire. Searing away the evil, separating it from the whole.

"Please, hold on…" He prayed, pulling Hermione's limp form roughly into his lap. Wrapping both arms around her, her head cradled against his shoulder as he stared into the purple heart of the flames that now danced across the hated creation. Coiling her long curls around his fingers as his gaze flickered to her face.

"If it doesn't exist, it can't hurt you. Hermione you can't leave me, I won't let you. No Heaven or Hell will ever bar me from you. Time itself _**will not take you from me! **_Don't slip away…" His voice dropped off to a whisper as he bent his head to hers, pressing his lips to hers- already cooling with her faint breaths. Not a tender action, but like a drowning man clutching for his salvation. A damned man at the gates of Hell, begging for release.

His chest throbbed with every labored beat of his heart, the room lighted with the flames that consumed every inch of the parchment and leather monstrosity. And his lips slid from hers as he spoke, his whispered voice harsh with emotion as he felt the last wall within him fall to the power of his own grief.

"I love you."

As the last inches of the vile tome disappeared to the onslaught of the flames, Tom felt her take a breath. A deep and shuddering breath, as the chill of death was banished from her flesh.

Hermione opened her eyes slowly, looking up at the ravaged and disheveled face of the man that had become to much a part of her life. The strange blessing of seeing every emotion play out on his face, the tears the glistened in the warm light of the hearth. Slowly she lifted her hand to his face, gently wiping away the tears that spilled down from eyes that were no longer impassive grey, but shot with the true, deep blue of gemstones.

She smiled then, feeling the strength flow back into her body. Heady and light as a perfect drug, returning to the hale and healthy body that she had possessed before the foul curse had taken it from her. Erased from her physical form as though it had never existed.

"You finally got it right," she said quietly, tilting her face towards his, "I love you to."

And perhaps it was not so much like an ending scene from a Muggle movie. But as the black scars of the curse faded to a tarnished silver, they knew that this was no final piece. This was the beginning of a new life for both of them. A second chance.

The future for them had been written, a blighted not-existence riddled with painful acceptance and the burning blackness of greed. A future that faded, rewritten by two people who, by chance and accident, found themselves at this point. Both of them broken and rebuilt, to face a life with a different set of problems.

And as the clock chimed the hour, and the dawn light spilled in through the window, they slept.

Bound together by something they had never known would exist for them. Something stronger then Time.

- ---

There you have it… Not including the epilogue, this is the ending. Thank you so much to everyone that has taken this ride with me, I have had the chance to meet some truly wonderful people.

Blindfaith

Svelte Rose

Tom the Riddle

Nerys

Hpfanf

Unenlightened

Akira

Ryn

Michaela

Lisie

Speed of Darkness

Enviousmoon

Lauraart123

And everyone else I might have missed. Your reviews have turned this from a 5 part drabble, into one of the longest pieces I have ever written. Hopefully I will have the epilogue up soon. But I am officially changing this to Completed, because the main story is.

And after a well-deserved break, I will begin the sequel. Thank you all again. So much.


	20. In Which We Say Goodbye

Disclaimer: The characters don't belong to me, they belong to JK Rowling, and no profit is being made off this work.

Jukebox Plays; Unbeautiful, by Lesley Roy

---- ----

The light slanted across the scrubbed clean, grey flagstones of the floor. They glowed faintly, as though lit softly from within by the energy that a million people and infused them with. The stories that they could tell- of lives passed in staring down at their impassive surface. Of the births, and the deaths; the countless joys and agonized partings. It had been the silent witness of more turns in the wheel of life then most people ever had the chance to see. In places, the stones were bleached paler by scrubbing- blood, footsteps, wearing worn through, until the mark of them had become an indelible part of the stone itself.

Moonlight shone silver through the high, faintly arched and deeply set windows that lined the long wall of the Infirmary. Casting it's etherial and softly gilded radiance over every surface that it touched. Catching and reflecting off the motes of dust that danced and spiraled through it's beams, crosshatching the room into sections of light, and impenetrable shadows that were all the deeper for the contrast. The air was suffused by the forever lingering, sharp and acid smell of medical disinfectant. Faintly touched by the peppery sweet tang of a vial of Pepper Up potion that had broken earlier that afternoon. A layer of scent that would soon fade, and leave only the steady notes behind. Of soap and sickness, the warm, sticky smell of gauze and starched sheets- the things that were present in every hospital, every sick room, the world over.

Tom stood at the door, watching for a moment as the warmly orange glow from the hallway cut across the Infirmary floor in a single streak of light. It broke the silvery blue peace of the room, a colour from a palette that didn't belong. That saved it from being nothing more then the dreamy and cold darkness that it had so much potential to be; and even if it's comforting softness did cast the shadows into darker relief- well, it was a reminder that the world was still out there. That would exist, even when the door had long since been shut behind him. It was impossible to close out the world completely.

Ever graceful, deceptively casual, Tom slid one hand into the pocket of his white Healer's outer robe. Unbuttoned, it hung loosely behind him revealing the simple black button down shirt beneath it. Clean and pressed, even despite the day spent administering to the sick and the helpless- the scared first year students that were ill with grief and fear at being separated from their families for the first time. Wishing that they could run away to the safety of the familiar- not wise enough yet to see that the best way yet to come. That if they only opened their eyes to the amazing things that were right in front of them, they would see. The world would not be denied forever.

He had learned that lesson well.

Here was where it all had started. Two young people with no idea how to make it in the world- lost and cast adrift on stormy seas that they had known would eventually pull them under and drown them. In his wife, he had found the salvation he had never dreamed he was worthy to know. Tom held his hand out in front of him- the long, elegant fingers and the slender palm that had been the same since he was a child. Changed forever by the simple band that circled the fourth finger. The forever reminder that he was not alone. That he was worth the time, and the effort- the pain- of building a life with. Time had passed, years had passed, since they had first looked into one another's eyes and known that there was something to the other that the world would never see.

And the world still didn't understand. And they didn't explain. The world saw only two people who seemed to move around each other like planets, caught together by their own gravity. Their own nature binding them together in a way that left outsiders wondering if they could ever really fathom it. The quietly reserved couple, that saved their affection for behind closed doors. Moments for them, and them alone.

Over the years, Tom had come to understand some of the life Hermione had come from. Some things she would not speak of- and somethings he was too afraid, too sickened, to ask. The evil that had tainted her world had been turned back at the source. Saving him in the final moments before it would have blossomed into the devouring force that would have consumed him. That would have turned him into the waxy, ashen faced creature that he had glimpsed so briefly in her memories. That still haunted his dreams, in moments when he allowed the vestiges of what he had seen consume him with self loathing.

Some things she did not tell him. Things that cut too close to the marrow; raking violently across exposed nerves that would never really heal. And he had learned to simply hold her close and say nothing at all. They did not console one another. They did not whisper that things _would be alright. _Because they knew, they had seen, that sometimes they were not. The silent reminder that the world could fall down around them, and she would still be able to lean on him. And he on her.

"Tom? Are you coming?"

Came the soft, familiar voice from beside him. The ebony haired man glanced over with grey eyes that held a rare moment of perfect serenity. They had opened Pandora's box. Together they had faced the very worst of what they had done, and what they had been- and found someone that could accept them without reserve. Not someone to heal them, but someone who's emotional baggage matched theirs so perfectly that they learned to heal each other. The scars of their subconscious minds remained, locked deep inside where the world was not able to find them.

Reaching over, Tom lightly rested his hand over the small of her back. An outward gesture to the world that this woman was his. The besotted expression that lingered in his eyes left no doubt that he was forever, happily, hers. "Of course I'm coming. Why would I stay here when I could be home?" He said. Hermione tilted her head to the side curiously, as though trying to divine through sight alone, what was turning about in her husband's mind.

"Maybe one day you'll stop being such a mystery, Tom."

"Somehow, dear.. I don't think so."

Maybe the world didn't understand. Maybe it never would. But with him, Hermione had found the kind of happiness that you cannot plan. That you can spend your whole life searching for- only to realize, only when you have reached the very bottom, that it was the last place you ever thought to look. And Tom had been hidden in the darkest moments, right before dawn.

They had survived. And more then that- They had found life.

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Wow... After nearly a year and a half of absence, I have finally, finally, finally finished this. I don't know why the inspiration for it suddenly clobbered me- but Im glad it did. I wanted to send out a million years of love to everyone that has ever reviewed this story, and I hope you're happy with the conclusion.


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